


Can You Feel My Heart

by UnknownBard



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Cheating, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Kara is a paramedic, Lena is a criminal defense lawyer, angsty and emo as hell, happy ending or money back guaranteed!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:40:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24407449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnknownBard/pseuds/UnknownBard
Summary: Lena and Kara are a couple envied by all, high school sweethearts, married for two years until infidelity comes crashing down on their seemingly perfect relationship.
Relationships: James "Jimmy" Olsen/Winn Schott Jr., Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Samantha "Sam" Arias/Alex Danvers
Comments: 160
Kudos: 458





	1. Fall

**Author's Note:**

> You ever just get a random burst of inspiration at 11 PM and write out an entire chapter? Forgive me for any weird typos, I finished this at 2 am and wrote it all on my phone. 
> 
> There aren't any particular warnings, except for mentions of cheating.

Lena met Kara in high school when her father’s scandal tarnished her family’s name and caused their wealth to exhaust rapidly when investors began pulling out of the company one by one. Boarding school was out of the question, far out of reach of a single mother’s salary.

Kara never cared about all of that, though. She made Lena feel like the most important girl in her life the moment they met.

And whenever Lena sank back into herself and into one of her destructive moods—on edge and looking for any reason to start a verbal spat—Kara remained loving and patient. 

It was beyond infuriating. Lena could never comprehend how someone could love so selflessly, which is ironic considering she isn’t the villain in this story. 

Perhaps what Lena knew to be true about Kara, the facade she had let Lena believe was real, was just an elaborate lie. Lena thought she knew Kara better than she knew herself, and she had felt that way when they started dating during mid-terms of their sophomore year, when they graduated, when they celebrated their first jobs, when they got engaged, when they bought their first house. 

Maybe she still feels that way, even now, after everything. 

She was foolish, of course. She sees it now. If there was a way, a magical breakthrough, a shortcut to fully understanding someone then poets would have no need to write about soul-crushing heartbreak. 

Two short years into their marriage, Kara cheated. 

No one believed it at first. Not Sam, not Alex, and certainly not Eliza. Maybe they too had been fooled by a handsome face and piercing blue eyes that Lena had been so taken with the moment she peered into them. A sea of emotions displayed in front of her, open and honest, and she set sail without planning for the devastating waves that came crashing down on her. 

Kara had fooled everyone. Sure, everything on the outside looked perfect, but she’d never let anyone in on the storm raging insane, not even her wife—soon to be ex-wife, if she would just sign the damn divorce papers already. 

It’s been five months. And Kara is still pulling every trick in the book to avoid doing it. Lena couldn’t think of one good reason that she would stall, other than to prolong Lena’s suffering.

Kara cheated. She alone let their marriage fail the moment she drunkenly clambered in Lucy Lane’s bed and broken the sanctity of their marriage, soiled it with lust like it had meant nothing to her. 

One night. One ‘mistake’. One too many drinks. 

That’s all it took to turn Lena’s life upside down. To redirect the clear path she had been walking down, the path that they had both been walking down together. Now, the road ahead was dark, full of rocks that caused her to trip and stumble at every turn. 

She was lost. 

Completely and utterly lost. 

She once thought Kara was her light. Lena doesn’t remember what the sun feels like on her skin, and even if it would shine upon her, she’s not sure she could feel its warmth.

“—I just don’t want you to freak out.” 

Lena looks up from the amber liquid sitting still inside her glass, untouched. Her eyebrows crease at the sound of her best friend’s words. “Freak out?” 

“Were you even listening?” 

“Sorry, I must have…” Lena doesn’t have the energy to lie. She wasn’t listening, plain and simple. 

Sam looks at her like she understands perfectly. She doesn’t give her a smile that reeks of pity, nor words that seem genuine but mean something else entirely. And Lena loves her for it. 

She watches Sam stand up, her wine glass clattering against the table as she sets it down and moves from her seat to plop down right next to Lena. 

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she feels Sam’s shirt become wet with her hot tears.

She wants so badly to hate Kara, to have it in her to seek revenge, but she can’t. Lena still loves her with everything she has, with every fiber of her being, and that’s the real reason why it hurts so damn much. 

Everything hurt like hell. 

Two days later, when Sam is cooking dinner in her kitchen—Lena has been staying with her all this time—Sam tells her that she’s seeing Alex. 

Lena laughs. Loud, incredulous bursts of laughter. It’s the first time in months that she truly wanted to laugh at something. 

Sam turns to her with a withering look, worry clouding her big, brown eyes. 

“Alex Danvers? The Alex Danvers you’ve known for nine years? The one that asked you out about a million times and you would always turn her down because ‘she isn’t my type Lena’. That Alex Danvers?”

“First off, I don’t sound like that—“

“—you do, but go on,” Lena cuts her off with a teasing grin. 

“Second, I was young and naive.” 

Sam’s setting their plates down, soon she’ll call Ruby down from her room, and Lena will have to plaster a fake smile on her lips and pretend like she isn’t holding back tears with every breath. 

Lena stares at her with a simple raised eyebrow. “Sam, she asked to come to _my_ wedding as her plus one. _Two_ years ago.” 

Sam gives her a completely inadequate answer, along with a small shrug of her shoulders. “Personal growth takes time.” 

“I think it’s too late for you.” 

Once they’re done with their daily ritual of ribbing one another, Sam pauses in the doorway leading out of the kitchen. It’s more like a large, rounded archway really. She spins on her heel, a solemn expression darkening her usually bright features. 

“I hope it won’t—I mean the thing with...“

Lena scoffs. “I would hardly call my asshole cheating wife who cheated on me like an asshole a ‘thing’. But that _particular_ asshole is related to the woman you’re currently dating now, _apparently_. And that’s a ‘ _thing’_.”

“Lena,” Sam starts, though Lena’s not sure if she really had something else to add or if she’s simply pleading with her, imploring her to not be mad. She’s not. 

“It’s fine.” It is, Lena thinks. She’s not sure, really. 

“I like her.” 

“I won’t let my sad emo self get in your way of happiness. Scout’s honor.” 

Sam’s fidgeting with her fingers now and it’s making Lena excessively nervous. If she even thinks of inviting Kara over...

“You know, a lot of couples can work through these issues. Maybe you—“

“Don’t.” Lena cuts her off sharply. She’s heard that same line from Lillian too many times to count in the last five months, she certainly doesn’t need to hear it from her best friend.

They don’t need to see a marriage counselor. There is nothing to counsel. Their marriage was over the day Kara chose to lay with someone other than her wife and there is no amount of therapy that can repair the damage that it caused. 

That’s what Lena tells herself. That’s what she wants to believe. But when she wakes up in Sam’s guest bedroom every morning, looking for Kara next to her by patting the cold sheets, she wonders if it would be easier to just go back. 

She can’t do that. She can’t let herself be weak. A few more weeks and she’ll be better. A few more months and she’ll get over nine years of loving Kara, and getting used to having Kara care for her. 

Who is she kidding? 

But, despite everything, she at least hoped that part was real. 

She hopes Kara is having a hard time falling asleep without her. That she spends sleepless nights going through every stage of their relationship, wondering what she did wrong. 

She fucked it up. Not Lena. Kara fucked up, and Lena can never forgive her. 

She doesn’t hear Sam walk up the noisy staircase. She forces a smile in Ruby’s direction when she sits down with them. She barely touches her food. 

Dinner is silent, her thoughts are not. 

That night when Sam asks her to watch yet another movie with them, Lena declines. She just can’t sit through another romantic comedy and keep her sanity intact. 

So, she retreats to the guest bedroom filled with her clothes. She brushes her teeth in the adjoining bathroom, takes off her jeans and blouse, and blindly pulls out a shirt from a non-descript duffel bag. 

It’s Kara’s. Of course, it is. Of course, she had accidentally packed one of Kara’s old and worn crew neck from National City University’s women’s hockey team when she stormed out of their house and peeled out of their driveway five months ago. 

She doesn’t sleep that night. Maybe she does, and maybe her thoughts actually merge into restless dreams without her realizing, but when the sun peeks through the blinds it feels entirely too early for her to be awake. 

Three months go by, and Kara still hasn’t signed the fucking divorce papers. When Lena enters Sam’s home after work one evening, Alex is there. 

“Hey, Lena! How are—“

She greets her like nothing had changed. It’s not her fault, of course, Alex didn’t force Kara to act like a selfish dick, but after a long day at work, her feet throbbing from standing up on heels all day long trying to convince a jury that the client she knows is guilty, wasn’t, Lena is in no mood to pretend that she's okay or that she wants to make small talk with her ex-wife’s sister. 

“Tell your asshole cheating sister to sign the fucking divorce papers,” Lena says as she walks by.

Those are the only words she speaks for the rest of the evening. She gets takeout after Sam says there’s enough food for her, and retreats to the guest room. Ruby knocks at her door later, they play scrabble for a few hours. It’s the best night she’s had in months. 

Still, she wishes it was Kara with her. That they were back in her stupid, smelly frat house playing board games all night. It was just the two of them. It was quiet and simple. Lena wonders if Kara always knew she’d turn into a cheating asshole or if it came as a surprise to her too. 

Maybe she’ll ask her the next time she sees her. Maybe Lena should drive to their old house—that she doesn’t live in anymore but still pays for—and incentivize Kara to sign the divorce papers.

That’s when Lena could also ask her when she decided to become a cheating asshole. 

She does. It takes her a few weeks and a few failed attempts. The first time, she drove by and felt nauseous. She pulled over in the empty parking lot of a deserted and unoccupied lot to dry heave and cry—not her finest moment. 

The second time she parked in the driveway, her hands tightened around her steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. Kara’s pick-up truck was in the driveway. She wanted to drive her beat-up Toyota into the front door, but instead, she drove away, singing along to her favorite heavy rock bands until her throat was raw from screaming. 

The third time is successful. She’s standing at the door, wearing dark jeans and a flannel, unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, over a black tank top. 

When the door opens Kara looks shocked to see her there, clearly not expecting company standing with the doorknob in one hand, wearing grey sweatpants and a loose, white t-shirt that has seen better days. Lena’s pretty sure it’s the one they painted the house with when they first moved in. 

They had made love on the hardwood floor of their empty room that day. Lena distinctively remembers hastily pulling that very shirt over Kara’s head. 

She doesn’t know what comes over her. Maybe it’s the way Kara looks at her like she thought she’d never see her again. Or maybe it’s those blue eyes that still look at her full of love. Lena’s not sure how or why she pushes at Kara’s chest until they’re both inside; until Kara’s back hits the door closed with the force of Lena’s body crashing into hers. 

Lena kisses her, and Kara kisses back. It’s rough, Lena tries to convey anger into it but then Kara’s hands drift up to her back and she quickly loses herself in her, in the familiarity of Kara lifting her up by grasping the back of her legs and walking them up the staircase and through the hallway that eventually leads to their bedroom. 

It’s not _theirs_ anymore, though, Lena thinks when Kara settles on top of her. She keeps quiet and doesn’t ask questions, and Lena’s grateful for that. Kara always knew how to read her like an open book. She wishes she could have done the same, and maybe then Lena could have prevented herself from getting hurt. 

She wants to slap her, but instead, Lena kisses her deeply and desperately. Kara knows exactly what she wants, what she needs, and she lets her take control.

When they’re done, when Lena finished marking her with a possessive nature she didn’t know she had until now, she quickly throws her clothes back on and leaves the room without so much as glancing back at her ex-wife who’s sprawled out on the sheets of their former bed, in their previously shared-house. 

When she’s at the door, she hears Kara’s footsteps thundering down the stairs. She’s dressed in the same clothes she greeted Lena with. Her hair is mussed, Lena’s doing, her neck sporting several purple marks and many others that are covered up, also Lena’s handy work.

She feels sick to her stomach. Had she just done this to reclaim something she had lost?

“Wait,” Kara says, breathless.

Lena turns around. She sighs. “Sign the papers.” 

“Can we talk? Please?”

It’s clear Kara has no intention of doing so. What she’s waiting for exactly still remains a mystery. But since she knows Kara, she probably thinks there’s a sliver of hope, that she can fix her mistake and things will magically go back to what they were. 

They won’t and she can’t. 

They were the couple that was envied by everyone, before all of this, before Kara became a cheating asshole. Now? People talk about them for entirely different reasons. 

Who’s keeping the house? Are they going to sell? What about the dog and the cat? 

“You want to talk? Then let’s talk, _honey_ ,” the word of endearment is nothing but, spoken with every bit of sarcasm Lena can muster. 

She continues when Kara remains silent. “Hello dirtbag cheating wife, this is your faithful wife speaking, and telling you to sign the fucking divorce papers so I can move on with my fucking life. Goodbye.” 

Lena steps outside and doesn’t wait for a response. She doesn’t need one. She doesn’t want to hear Kara stutter an excuse like she always does. She can’t look into her sad eyes and pretend that it’s not killing her that Kara looks awful, that she probably hasn’t been sleeping either and that she also lost her appetite. 

She had wished for those things out of pettiness, but her heart aches to see the woman she gave her life to in as much pain as she's in. And she hates herself for it. She wishes she could hate Kara instead. But she doesn’t and she never will. 

When she drives away and her house grows smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror, she suddenly remembers she forgot to ask Kara the question she wanted an answer to, the entire reason that she drove to their house in the first place.

_Fuck_. 

Maybe next time. 

There is a next time. More than one, actually. 

Lena drives there again, a week later. They have sex on their former couch this time—they didn’t have time to get to the bedroom. 

Lena’s not sure why it keeps happening or why she lets it, but in the moments where it’s just the two of them, their pleasure heightened by the familiarity of their partner’s body, she makes herself believe she’s using Kara. 

It’s the insane duality of the situation that keeps her coming back for more, like a double-edged sword cutting her open with every stroke of Kara’s fingers on her skin. 

It’s a dangerous game, she knows. Lena convinces herself that every time it happens it’s the last time, but it isn’t. They have sex, they don’t talk, and the times that Kara attempts to, Lena snaps at her, yells, and storms out. They have an established routine and it’s fucked up in every way imaginable, but Lena can’t seem to stay away, and neither can Kara. 

She hates that she can see an apology almost forming on Kara’s lips every time their eyes meet when they’re silently shuffling back into the clothes they so carelessly discarded moments before. 

Lena doesn’t want to hear it. Nothing she can say could ever make up for what she’s done to her and to their marriage. She leaves without a word every time, and when Kara texts her asking if she’s alone at Sam’s, she invites her in then too. 

Sam finds out. Not because Lena told her, but because she and Alex got home early when the movie they had talked about for weeks and were dying to see sucked so bad they walked out of the theatre and came home to see Kara leaving the guest bedroom of Sam’s house. 

Lena hears the conversation through her closed door. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Alex shouts in surprise.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Kara deflects and shouts back, defensive.

“I—“

“You didn’t tell me.” 

Kara sounds hurt.

“I didn’t think it was the right time.”

It never is, Lena thinks. She’s glad Sam had told her before Lena found out this way.

“I can’t believe you!”

“ _Me_?!” Alex yells, incredulous. “What about you, huh? You didn’t answer my question.”

Lena rips her door open, having thrown a sweater and a pair of shorts when the shouting outside her door only got louder. She was dying from embarrassment, sure, but she didn’t need a headache to boot.

“Why the hell are you all yelling so fucking loud?” Right outside the door of her room, no less. 

“She’s yelling!” They both shout at the same time.

Lena rolls her eyes, an automatic response to the Danvers sister’s bickering. They’ll never change. 

Sam claps her hands together. “As much fun as this has been, both of you, out.” She motions to the stairs leading to the entrance of her home, and the front door.

Alex stares at her with a look that screams ‘you can’t be serious’ and then turns her pointed glare in Kara’s direction. 

Lena almost sends Kara a pleading look. Before, she would have forced her to face Sam’s wrath with her, but now, she’s on her own. 

They’re sitting on the couch, Lena knows Ruby is sitting in the stairs listening but she doesn’t say anything. The shouting most likely woke the poor girl up.

“How did it start?” Sam asks, cautiously. She isn’t treading lightly, though. She never pulls a punch and never treats Lena like she’s fragile China. Not like Kara does anyways. It’s a nice change of pace. 

“I don’t know.” How does she even begin to answer that question? 

Sam sighs, purses her lips into a thin line. “Spill.” 

“I just went back to the house to tell her to sign the papers, which she still hasn’t by the way, and it just...happened.” 

“So you talked about signing divorce papers and then you banged?”

Lena laughs because it sounds ridiculous, and it is, but it’s not exactly the correct order of events. “Not exactly. I didn’t ask. We didn’t talk. We just had sex. We’ve been having sex, without talking.” 

Sam looks surprised. She’s heard Lena curse Kara out every day for eight months. And now Lena’s telling Sam that she’s been sleeping with her ex-wife.

“How long?” 

“Three weeks.” 

“I hate you.” 

Lena groans and drops her head into her hands. Her legs are folded underneath her, offering minimal comfort. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m a fool, I’m well aware of that.” 

“ _Now_ will you agree to see a therapist?”

“I don’t know, Sam.” She leans back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t know if I want to fix things.”

Sam scoots closer, unfolding Lena’s arms and taking her hand in hers. Lena lets her.

“Look, babe, you clearly still feel _something_ for each other. Maybe you two can work it out. No harm in trying, right?”

“Right.” 

There is definitely harm in trying. 

Kara spins her rings nervously on her finger the entire time. She looks down between them and the expanse of space there is on the couch they’re sitting on like she wants to reach out and hold onto Lena’s hand. So, Lena keeps her arms crossed during the session. 

The therapist is nice, though it’s clear she doesn’t have much experience with lesbian couples. She looks like she’s one second away from asking ‘who’s the top?’ And maybe it’s just Lena overreacting, but she would definitely answer ‘isn’t it obvious?’

In a courtroom, Lena runs the show. But in the bedroom, she wants to _feel_ not _think_ , so she lets Kara lead. She always does. 

The therapist asks Kara a question, Lena doesn’t hear it but she catches her wife—ex-wife’s answer. 

“I haven’t, no,” Kara says. She sounds so small and meek. She looks thinner than the last time Lena paid her a visit. She wonders when’s the last time she had a decent meal. 

“You haven’t what?” Lena asks, and it’s a little snippy but she doesn’t feel guilty about it. Not one bit. 

“I haven’t thought about her.”

_Her_. Lucy Lane. Kara’s co-worker. A fellow Paramedic.

“Have you seen her? Talked to her?” Lena knows she shouldn’t be the one asking the questions, she sees the therapist’s poorly concealed annoyance clear as day, marked on the way her lips twitch slightly. 

“No.” 

So they changed shifts. That's good. Not that it could change anything now _after_ they already fucked.

Lena wants to wretch again. She already has a pounding headache from lack of sleep. Why did she even agree to this in the first place? 

Lena turns away from Kara and fixes a point behind the therapist, over her shoulder. The city skyline is beautiful this time of day. Winter is fast approaching and the days are getting shorter. It’s not later than 6 and the sun is already setting, reflecting orange and red rays on the tall, window-clad buildings.

The answers Kara gives only offers a moment of satisfaction. So she hasn’t seen or talked to Lucy since, which means it was truly _just_ a one-time thing—a glitch in the Matrix—but Lena’s left with more questions than answers. 

She remains quiet, and when the pair walk back to their cars, Kara glances at Lena like she wants to hug her. Lena wishes she could walk into Kara’s space, accept the comfort only she can give her. But she can’t, and she doesn’t. 

They part with terse goodbyes. Lena slumps in her car’s seat, forehead resting against the steering wheel. Kara did most of the talking and yet she feels like she ran a marathon. Twice. She could sleep for weeks. 

When she gets to Sam’s, she retreats to her room without uttering a word and falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow. 

She doesn’t dream. 

It’s the best sleep she’s had in months.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like really hate myself for writing this lmao
> 
> Tumblr: sups-in-my-corp.tumblr.com


	2. Fall part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: mentions of cheating, malnutrition, alcohol abuse.

Kara’s laying in bed, arms stretched out, tank top riding up and showing a glimpse of a toned stomach. There’s an insistent throbbing in her head, something she’s gotten used to waking up to.

She turns her head, groaning, one eye open as she searches for her phone. She figures it should be sitting atop her bedside table, _somewhere_. She pushes something off of it by mistake and it clatters onto the wooden floor noisily. It’s the red cup she had drank from last night. 

Who has time to dirty glasses and wash them? Certainly not Kara. Disposable cups are the way of the future, she thinks. 

She settles back onto the bed, rubbing her eyes and glancing down at the notifications displayed on her phone’s screen. It’s way too bright.

There’s only one text from her sister: ‘where the hell are you???’

 _Shit_. 

Alex is moving today. 

Kara clambers out of bed, crashes to the floor, and jumps back on her feet quickly. She throws on whatever article of clothing she can find, brushes her teeth, and runs out of the door and into her truck like a whirlwind of blonde hair and mismatched clothes. 

Lena would have made her change if she had been there. Her life’s been nothing but chaotic ever since Lena left her. She doesn’t blame her. 

She’s been thinking how she could explain herself, racking her brain to come up with an answer, but everything she comes up with is wholly inadequate. Lena deserves better. She deserves the world and Kara ripped it away from her for one night. One idiotic mistake. 

If she could go back in time, have one less drink, refuse to walk an equally wasted Lucy home, stop her when she was undoing her belt, push her away when she was kissing her, she would. 

She’d give everything to repair her mistake, erase it even. But life wasn’t that simple. You can’t just rewind time. 

Some nights, though, when she does sleep, she has dreams that she can. 

It would be easy to blame it on the fact that she wasn’t sober, to blame it on the alcohol itself. But any way you look at it, her infidelity came from a lack of self-control. A momentary lapse in judgment that has had harsh consequences on the one person she promised to cherish for the rest of her life. 

Kara doesn’t deserve forgiveness, that's the reason why she isn’t looking for it. She would never ask such a thing of Lena. 

And yet, she can’t sign those damn divorce papers. They sit on her kitchen table, _their_ kitchen table. She doesn’t use it. She barely eats. And when she does, it’s takeout with Alex while they watch whatever hockey game is being broadcast that night. 

Hockey is the only thing that’s keeping her sane, and her job. Every day she has to tend to individuals who are in physical pain caused accidents or natural disasters. Sometimes it’s even physical pain caused by their emotional troubles. 

Kara understands. She’s been there before. She didn’t have a family, not until the Danvers took her in, but by then she was already broken beyond repair, or at least, that’s what she told herself. 

Drugs were her means of escape. They offered her solace, however momentary, but still, she had become highly addicted to the feeling of not feeling anything. 

Then Lena came along, shone brightness in the darkest parts of herself. She gave up drugs for Lena, for their future, but she picked up something arguably equal by how treacherous it is: alcohol. 

It was normal, expected even, for jocks to get wasted on the weekends or after big wins. Kara never told anyone that she would, more often than not, drink alone almost every day. 

Lena noticed it, but she didn’t mind. She accepted Kara for who she was, a deeply flawed individual. They both were. But, together they were better. It was easier to fight her demons when Lena was standing behind her, armed and ready. 

She feels remorse. She feels guilt. But, above all else, Kara feels like the worst piece of shit that ever lived. She isn’t unacquainted with the beast that is self-hatred—her birth parents gave her away and whether that’s because they didn’t want her or not didn’t matter—Kars treated herself as they did, like she was something you could just throw away. 

Like she was unlovable. 

So maybe she picked up those traits to live up, or rather, live down, to that warped image of who she is and who she’s supposed to be. She makes up for it by loving others, putting their needs above hers, and always giving them a helping hand even if she doesn’t have the time or the means to do so. 

Usually, she didn’t. 

She doesn’t even have the energy to get herself out of bed, she doesn’t remember when’s the last time she had something that wasn’t liquid. Yet, here she is, holding up a heavy fridge in an awkward position in a winding metal staircase that leads to Alex’s _new_ third-floor apartment. 

“Why are you moving again?”

“Lower rent, closer to work.” 

All valid reasons, sure. Maybe it helps to take her mind off of the absolutely shitty mess that is her life right now.

“Right, and you thought ‘I’ll call Kara instead of movers. She sure loves sweating like a pig!’”

“Why else would you play hockey throughout high school and university if you didn’t like ‘sweating like a pig?’”

“Okay,” she huffs with a grunt. Sweat drips down her back and pools against the shirt that sticks to it against her skin. “You win this time.” 

“You could have asked your super buff EMT friend to come and help us.” Alex is also losing the battle against the warm sun and humid weather they’re blessed with on this day. Or rather, cursed with.

“Paramedic,” Kara corrects and takes another step back onto the stair, arms and legs burning from exertion. “And we’re on different schedules now.” 

“Because of—“

Kara sighs. She had gone a whole ten minutes without thinking of Lena, and what she had done to her. Maybe she didn’t deserve to _not_ think about it. 

“Yeah.” 

They hoist the fridge up the last stair and slide it against the floor once they’re in the apartment, moving it into the space designated for it 

They both slump against it, Kara wipes her sweat with the collar of her shirt. 

“Break?” Alex asks, handing her a warm beer from the case that lay on the bare and naked countertop. 

They sit on the floor of what will soon be Alex’s new living room. It’s big, bigger than her previous loft where it felt like her bed was simultaneously in the kitchen and the living room. 

“I saw Lena yesterday.” 

Kara’s eyes snap up from where they were fixated, watching her fingers peel at the label of her beer bottle. Alex won’t look at her. 

“She’s staying at Sam’s.” 

Kara doesn’t even ask why she was there, to begin with. She’s too focused on the fact that Alex saw Lena. _Her_ Lena. 

“How is she?” It’s a stupid question, she knows. Lena hasn’t answered any of her texts in five months, except the one she had sent when the divorce papers were mailed to her house, _their_ house. 

“She wants you to sign the papers.” 

Kara drinks half the bottle in one large, rather unpleasant pull of warm beer. It tastes like a mixture of piss and what the dirty socks in her hockey bag smell like. 

“I can’t, Alex.” 

“Haven’t you put the girl through enough shit already? Seriously Kara, what the hell is wrong with you?”

Kara shakes her head but remains silent. Her jaw tenses, she forces tears back. Of course, she knows. She knows more than anyone the pain she caused. She feels it tenfold and should feel it ten more. 

Lena doesn’t deserve any of this. 

“You know I’ll always love you, you’re my sister, but you need to figure your shit out.” 

What’s there to figure out? She can’t go back in time. She can’t pretend it never happened, Lena certainly wouldn’t be able to. And she shouldn’t. 

“She’ll never forgive me. She’ll never talk to me again. She’ll never _think_ of me again.” Kara only looks up when she hears her sister scoff. 

“You’re an arrogant ass, you know that?”

Kara frowns at her words. Not at their harshness, that is well-deserved, but at their meaning. 

“It’s not up to _you_ to decide what she can and can’t do.” She punctuates her statement by poking the wrinkles creasing Kara’s forehead. 

Kara pulls back and frowns even more. How could she even begin to fix what she had done? The trust that was broken the moment she didn’t leave Lucy’s apartment before any clothes were taken off, before any invisible barriers were broken. 

“I can’t sign it.” 

“Then you better figure out how to fix your marriage.” Alex stands up, downs the rest of her beer with a grimace, and offers Kara her hand. “But right now, you’re going to help me figure out how to get my couch up here.” 

“This is my punishment.” And she gladly accepts it. Kara groans and takes the offered hand, Alex’s does very little work to actually pull her up on her feet. 

“Good. Maybe it’ll teach you how to not be a giant asshole.”

“Doubtful.”

It’s dark out when they finish moving in everything. Alex orders pizza and Kara eats for the first time in days. It feels good, too good, and she may have eaten entirely too fast. When she gets home, she throws it all up. 

She used to love food. Lena would joke that Kara loves food more than her at times. She was wrong, of course, but Kara always had a gargantuan appetite and whether it was from playing sports or her fast metabolism, she couldn’t be sure. 

It could also very well be gluttony. 

A week later, Kara eats Big Belly Burger. It reminds of her Lena, and how she would drive Kara at the closest one after every hockey game, win or lose. A treat of sorts. An excuse to spend time together.

She runs to the bathroom of questionable cleanliness and empties the contents of her stomach in the toilet closest to the door streaked with greasy handprints she shouldered her way through. 

Eating there was a giant mistake. 

She drives to the nearest 7-Eleven and buys a case of beer, a bag of chips and some chocolate bars. She spends her evening playing video games, ignoring her friend’s text messages, and just generally wallows in a constant state of feeling sorry for herself while also believing she fully deserves all the pain and guilt that's making it impossible for her to focus on anything else. 

Except when she’s drunk, only then is her mind is finally quiet. 

Slinky, her cat, _their_ cat, sits on her lap, while Noah sleeps upstairs on Lena’s side of the bed. He’s been doing that ever since she left. It’s been nearly seven months. 

Kara jolts awake, the TV and console shut off by themselves hours ago. She squeezes her left hand, there’s a half-empty beer can clutched there. There’s also an open bag of chips next to her.

She’s not sure what time it is. It’s still dark out, Kara notices with a quick glance out the window. She rubs the back of her neck, sore from the awkward angle she slept in. 

She takes a shower, changes into sweatpants and an old t-shirt, and jumps on top of the bed, over the covers. Noah curls in a ball against her side. 

Lena never let the dog sleep in the bed, but Slinky always did. He slept on her raven hair most nights and would often wake Kara up by walking all over her face. 

He’s always been a jealous little shit. 

She missed that. Not just the weeks where she would work the night shift, come home early and slip under the covers next to Lena, push her front to her back, and smell her hair. Even if it was just for a few hours before Lena had to start her day, it was the only thing Kara would look forward to after a particularly long day at work. 

Especially when they lost people. When their heart would stop before they reached the hospital. When they would bleed out on the gurney and Kara would have to change out of her work shirt that was stained crimson. 

Losing someone that way hurt like hell. But, after losing her wife the way she did, by her own stupid fault, Kara’s not so sure any grief could hold up to what she’s feeling right now. Knowing she hurt the one person she loved the most. Knowing Lena is still alive and well and that she couldn’t do anything to ease her pain; a fate worse than death. 

She falls asleep, eventually. 

The next day starts off as it usually does: Kara wakes up wishing she didn’t, starts the coffee maker while she lets Noah go outside to do his morning business, scoops up the cat’s litter box, grabs her freshly brewed coffee and eats stale chips from the bag that had stayed open the night before while watching sports highlights. 

A very luxurious lifestyle indeed.

There’s a knock at her door that makes Kara pause mid-bite. She taps her phone’s screen. It’s two o’clock, an odd time for Alex to be showing up considering she should be at work. 

But when she throws the door open, expecting to see some housewife from the neighborhood wanting to sell her some ‘miraculous’ essential oils—Kara briefly wonders if there’s one that can turn back time—but it’s Lena’s who’s standing in front of her. Like really standing on her front porch, _their_ front porch, not just a figment of her imagination. 

She looks beautiful, even if her hair looks messy in the high ponytail Lena usually wears. Even if her face and cheeks appear more sunken than usual. Even if there are dark circles under her eyes, Lena’s still the most stunning woman Kara’s ever seen. 

And she fucked it up. She fucked up big time.

Before she has a chance to speak, not that she could, she’s being pushed inside and against the door. Lena’s kissing her. Like actually kissing her, and Kara wonders if this is a dream, if she opened the door into another reality where she didn’t cheat on her amazing wife like an asshole. The biggest, she thinks. Lena would agree, surely. 

The trip up the stairs is precarious for two reasons. One, because Lena won’t pull back from the kiss, and Kara won’t open her eyes, and two, because she could unwillingly trip on an animal. It happened before and it was a disastrous affair. 

They make it to her bedroom safely, _their_ bedroom. Kara peers down into Lena’s green eyes, always so bright and soulful. They express so much, though all that Kara sees in them right now is pain and anger. 

She’s kissing Lena’s neck, feeling the warmth of her body underneath her. Lena opens up her legs, hooking them around Kara’s waist as she arches her back into her. 

Her head’s spinning, and this time not from alcohol. She’s not sure why this is happening, but she would be a fool to stop it. She should, it would be the right thing to do. But, she can’t. 

She missed Lena beyond words could ever express. Even if this is the last time she’ll get to make love to her wife, Kara decides that she’ll cherish every second of it. 

And she does. She takes her time, tasting every inch of Lena’s skin. Everything that Lena gives, she takes willingly. She knows it’s a mistake, though. The moment Lena cries out her release, her lips brushing against the shell of her ear, Kara regrets it. 

Not because she didn’t want to—she really wanted to—but because she’s not sure how Lena’s going to react. If she’ll blame Kara. She has every right to. 

But, Lena doesn’t say a word. Kara watches her dress herself and exit her bedroom, _their_ master suite. 

She debates going after her. She tells herself she didn’t want to chase forgiveness, that she wouldn’t smother her with apologies, but she has to do _something_. Lena’s in her house, _their_ home. 

So, she throws her clothes on as quickly as she can and runs down the stairs, skipping three and four at a time. 

“Wait!” It’s the only thing she can say when Lena has her hand on the doorknob. 

She doesn’t have a speech prepared, and maybe she should have, because her brain is now rendered useless when Lean turns around, looking at her with expectant green eyes. The hickey she left right in the middle of Lena’s throat is visible.

Kara doesn’t say anything else, she lets Lena yell at her. She lets her leave her home, _their_ house, not knowing if she’ll ever see her again. 

Kara doesn’t actually sign the divorce papers. If it’s the only thing that will keep Lena coming back, then she’ll never sign the damn things. 

She finds out, rather quickly, that they aren’t the only thing that makes Lena visit her regularly. 

It’s the sex. 

They don’t talk. They never do. Lena shows up, one of them initiates kissing and whether they can make their way to a bedroom or not is the only unknown factor in this weird development in their relationship—if you can even call it that. 

They’re still married, technically, and though it’s entirely Kara’s fault that Lena left her, she’s not willing to give it up, to give her up. And if sex is the only thing that Lena can offer her, then she’ll do her best not to screw that up too. 

After a particularly exhausting three hours that started in the living room and ended in _their_ bedroom, Lena talks to her. There’s no yelling this time. At least, not yet. 

“Can I get some water?” She asks, almost timid.

“It’s still your house, Lena.”

She doesn’t mean for it to sound like she doesn’t want to get her wife water, or that it would be a chore to do so, Kara just wants Lena to feel comfortable in her own home. It still is _their_ home. 

Lena scowls at her, so Kara hurries downstairs and grabs a bottle of water from the fridge lest she bursts into flames under Lena’s heated gaze. 

Lena accepts the bottle with a ‘thank you’ when she walks back into the room with two of them held in her hands. Kara replies with ‘you're welcome’, it's the longest conversation they had in eight months. 

After that, Kara becomes bolder in how she approaches this phase in their relationship. She texts Lena, and she actually gets a response in return. They have sex at Sam’s house too, until they get caught. 

Kara’s sitting in her sister’s car after Sam kicked them both out—she had taken the bus here seeing as there’s never any parking space on this damn street. Not to mention the last time she parked here, she came back to a rather large scratch on the front end of her bumper.

She sent Lena a picture, who then accused Kara of making shit up just to start a conversation with her, and though that was half true, Kara was still pissed about the hit and run and just needed to vent to someone. 

Lena’s her default choice, for everything really, not just venting about idiots who can’t drive and don’t have the decency to leave their contact info after smashing into someone else’s car. 

But Sam, she’s always been a great friend to Lena, and Kara’s happy that she’s been there for her. She shouldn’t have to be though, but Kara’s an asshole cheater, that’s what Lena changed her name to in her phone’s contact info. 

Kara knows this because one morning she woke up to an unprompted picture of it sent by text from Lena herself. No message, just the image. 

She laughed that morning. Truly laughed. It wasn’t forced, or dry or anything less than genuine amusement. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Alex says as soon as she settles in the driver’s set of her sporty 2-door car. 

“I didn’t—she’s the one who—“ Kara sighs, props her cheek against her fist, and lets her gaze fall on the road ahead. “Never mind. Just take me home.” 

“You _idiot_. When I said you should fix your marriage, I didn’t mean ‘try to keep her back by banging the living hell out of her’.” 

That isn’t her plan, it’s never been. If Kara actually had a plan, then she probably wouldn’t be in this position. She wouldn’t let their relationship fall down the weird rabbit hole of angry fucking while simultaneously getting the silent treatment from her wife. 

Lena’s very good at getting her point across loud and clear. Whether Kara signs the paper or not, whether she forgives Kara or not, she’s Lena’s. She’ll always be. 

Lena marks her in different places every time, just to be sure Kara understands.

“That’s not—I don’t even know what we’re doing.” 

“Maybe you should take another biology class.” 

Alex laughs at her, Kara glares at her sister from the corner of her eye. 

“She showed up at my—our house a few weeks ago. She initiated it. She kissed _me_.”

“And you didn’t stop her? Of course you didn’t.” 

Alex is shaking her head, slowly, like a disappointed mother, like she’s being reprimanded. She isn’t even surprised, and that’s what hurts Kara the most. 

But, if it wasn’t for Alex supporting her through this, Kara doesn’t trust she wouldn’t wake up in a different ditch most mornings. She’s her compass, pointing true north. 

“Your place or mine?”

“Do you have any food?” Kara’s second greatest love. 

“Mine it is.” 

The silence in the car is deafening. Kara’s mind is just as loud. She wants peace and quiet, and she thinks, maybe if she talks about it she’ll finally get some reprieve. 

“I don’t know what to do.” She admits. 

“Whatever it is you _should_ be doing, this isn’t it, Kara.”

She jumps on the defensive train, throwing back a question at her sister instead of mulling her advice. That would be the wise thing to do, so naturally, Kara does the exact opposite. “You and Sam. What’s up with that?”

“You don’t get to ask questions.” 

The rest of the drive is silent, apart from them fighting over which channel to put the radio on. Kara wins by way of guilt-tripping, telling Alex: “you’re a cop, it would be _totally_ irresponsible of you to not pay attention to the road.”

“Lucky for me, you know how to set broken bones.” 

“Not if it’s your skull.” 

“Fair point.” 

A week later after the ‘Sam and Alex incident’, that’s what Lena calls it, Kara gets a text with a time and address. When she looks it up on Google Maps, she finds out it belongs to a marriage counselor. 

She smiles, and it hurts her cheeks. How long had it been since she last smiled like that? She can’t remember. Either way, she sends a screenshot to Alex, who replies with a thumbs up and ‘look at you all grown up’. 

Their first session isn’t great. Lena barely talks. Kara has to lead the conversation the entire time. She’s nervous as hell, so she plays with her ring. She’s glad to see Lena hasn’t taken hers off either. 

“Walk me through what happened. When did the conflict start?” The therapist asks.

Kara looks down at her hands and hears Lena scoff. She wants so badly to take her hand in hers. Kiss the back of it. Tell her everything will be okay. She knows Lena wouldn’t let her, though. So, she keeps her hands to herself.

“I cheated,” Kara says. “Once,” she adds as if to relieve herself of some minute amount of guilt and judgment. 

She can almost taste the bile in her throat. She feels sick. She makes herself sick. No wonder Lena can’t bear to look at her for more than a few seconds at a time. Kara doesn’t remember the last time she stared at her own reflection. 

During the second session, Lena talks more. She mostly yells, really, asking Kara why she did it, why she cheated. Honestly, Kara doesn’t even know. She doesn't know where to begin to understand her own actions. 

“I’m sorry. I wish I had an answer.” 

“Stop apologizing.”

“Sorry.” 

The therapist clears her throat when Lena groans in frustration.

“Let’s move on to something else. Are you two still physically close? Sex, I mean.”

They both eye each other warily when the question assaults their ears. They look like two guilty teenagers who were just caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing. 

The therapist tells them they should start over, from the beginning. Her directives are clear: no more sex. 

But they can’t. They’ve been together for nine years, married for two, how could they just start over like nothing had happened? 

Lena seems just as hopelessly frustrated with the advice, but she doesn’t knock on Kara’s door that night. 

After the third session, Kara goes home and empties out all the alcohol she has in the house. 

But then, Lena sends her a text:

‘Sign the fucking papers, asshole.’

Kara walks to the nearest bar and drinks until she can’t walk straight. She’s pretty sure Alex has to pick her up while she’s on the job, she remembers getting in a police cruiser, but the memory is a hazy blur the next morning.

She tries again, a few days later, and this time she packs all the alcohol she has in the trunk of her car and drives to a clearing. There’s a large cliff and a quarry of sorts below. 

Alex would be happy to tell her this is beyond illegal, but Kara doesn’t care. She texts Lena her GPS location and then sends her a simple ‘meet me’ text. 

She sits on her truck’s hood while she waits, and looks up at the blanket of stars overhead. She and Lena would always lay down in the grass in their backyard, pointing out shooting stars and constellations, falling asleep together, and waking up early in the morning, cold and wet from the condensation in the air. 

They got sick plenty of times, but that never stopped them from going back and falling asleep under the stars together. 

She hears a car pull up, tires noisily crushing the gravel underneath. The engine shuts off and then there’s the distinctive sound of a door closing. Kara doesn’t turn around when she recognizes Lena’s footfalls approaching. 

“Jesus, Kara, what the hell are you doing out here?” 

“There you are.” 

They’re talking now, in full sentences. It’s weird but welcomed nonetheless. Especially since Lena stopped calling her an asshole every second word. 

“You’re not going to kill me and dump me here, are you?”

Wordlessly, Kara slides off the hood and pops the trunk open. She watches Lena’s eyebrow lift in question. Kara wants so very badly to grab her face and kiss her senseless. 

“Are you selling or…?”

Kara chuckles and rolls her eyes, picking up a bottle of gin from the opened cardboard box. She walks to the edge of the cliff and chucks it in the pit below. For a long moment, there’s nothing but silence, until it breaks against a rock and shatters. 

“I don’t think that’s what our therapist had in mind when she said you should _throw_ away your alcohol habit.” 

Probably not, no. But it’s remedial to see the liquid that’s had a hold on her for so long, and very nearly ruined her life on several occasions, spilled like it didn’t hold any power over her. 

“Yeah, but it’s more fun that way,” Kara shrugs and she turns to Lena with a small, tiny smile etched on her face. 

“Try it.”

With a sigh, Lena uncrosses her arms and reaches for a bottle of Jack Daniels from the trunk. She walks to the edge, stopping just beside Kara. She holds her arm up and releases her grip on the bottle. It breaks against a sharp rock, an explosion of glass and whiskey. 

“Oh, come on. You have to _throw_ it!”

“I don’t have to do anything.” 

Kara can’t counter that argument.

“Indulge me.” 

“I can’t believe I’m letting you coerce me into one of your childish games.” 

Kara’s grinning now, it feels foreign to her. She notices how Lena’s hair is down, how the wind picks up raven strands of hair, how the corner of her lip quirks into a smile she’s trying hard to suppress.

Kara thinks it’s magic, how Lena appears more and more beautiful every time she sees her. It’s probably just aging, but with the moonlight and shadows tracing the prominent features of her face, Kara likes to pretend there’s something supernatural about her beauty; timeless and regal like she belongs to a king or a family of noble blood. Kara’s but a simple peasant in comparison. 

“I bet you can’t hit that rock over there.” Her finger points to a particularly jagged rock below, maybe ten feet or so from the edge. Lena moves in closer to assess which one Kara’s spotting. She can smell her perfume. The one Kara always buys for her.

She’s always been competitive, Kara thinks. Always the loudest one to yell at referees when Kara’s team would get bad penalties. She misses that time.

This is good, though. Almost as good.

“What are we betting?”

“Uh, pocket lint?” Kara offers after digging absolutely nothing out of her pockets. 

Lena throws her head back in laughter and Kara’s certain it’s the most beautiful sound she’s ever heard. 

The bottle Lena throws hits the rock. She opens her palm to receive her winnings: a decent-sized wad of lint. Then, she points to a rock which is ridiculously far away. 

Not one to ever back down from a challenge, Kara rolls her shoulders, putting on a show as she jumps in place, takes a few steps back, then runs forward and throws the bottle as hard as she can. 

It never reaches its target. 

Lena smirks at Kara’s pout.

They continue that way until the trunk of Kara’s car is empty. The final score is 12-7 in Lena’s favor. Kara may have let her win just for the sake of seeing her triumphant victory dance, followed by two raised middle fingers that Kara accepts as a small punishment for losing, and for bringing her wife here late at night, but mostly for being a cheating asshole. 

“Feel better?” Lena asks, equal parts sarcastic and amused. 

“Nah. You?”

“My arm hurts.” 

Kara laughs. Again. 

They sit on the hood of her car and watch the stars in silence. It’s getting colder at night, the wind is biting rather than warm like it is for most of the summer. She slips the NCU hoodie off of her head and offers it to Lena. 

Lena looks at it, then at Kara.

“We should probably go,” she points out, though she’s having a hard time making her words seem sincere.

“Somewhere you have to be?”

Kara knows from the look on Lena’s face that she’s won, even when she glowers at her as she rips the hoodie out of her hands and settles into it, pulling it over her head. 

They settle back down against the windshield, shoulders touching. Kara fights against the need to take Lena’s hand in hers, to pull her in against her side and feel her warm breath against her neck. 

She can’t, though. She wants to respect Lena’s boundaries and what she’s willing to do. She won’t push her. That’s how she’s always treated her. 

Her best friend, her girlfriend, her wife. 

Lena suddenly mounts her. They kiss long and deep for what feels like an eternity. Lena’s nose is cold when it presses into her cheek. She doesn’t mind, not when Lena slides her tongue against hers and nibbles on her bottom lip. 

Kara pulls back, breathless. “Wanna have sex in the car?”

Lena nods, her breath spilling over Kara’s kiss-swollen lips, emerald eyes dark with desire. 

So maybe they fail the closeness test, it’s stupid anyway, something they both agree on, but after that night Kara remains sober. 

It doesn’t fix things. Lena doesn’t forgive her. It doesn’t change that she cheated. They continue attending the therapy sessions even if they both realize they don’t need it, that they can get to wherever they’re going on their own and at their own pace. 

She sleeps better now, she can tell Lena does to, by the bright gleam in her eyes whenever she smiles and the color returning to her cheeks. 

She eats too. Twice a day, which is much better than before. People at work notice. Winn asks her about Lena, but Kara refuses to speak about her personal issues when she’s on the clock. She needs a clear head to do her job, one mistake could cost someone’s life and that’s something she could never forgive herself for. 

It looks like she may be starting to forgive herself for her past mistakes. Not just the infidelity, but all of them. She isn’t perfect and she’ll never be, but for Lena, she sure as hell will try anything. 

Even if it takes months, years before she can forgive Kara. Time is a moot point. She vowed to stick by Lena through thick and thin, ‘until death do us part’, and that’s a promise she never intends to break. 

So God help her. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: sups-in-my-corp.tumblr.com


	3. Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena’s POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "How much angst is in this chapter?"
> 
> Yes.

Things get worse before they get better, it’s a known fact. A pattern Lena noticed early on when it came to life in general. The situation she’s in is already shitty, though some argue there are worse things Kara could have done to her—Lena thinks it’s complete bullshit.

It starts with Alex inviting Kara over to watch the hockey game at Sam’s, while Lena had already planned to have a quiet evening with her friend from work, Eve. 

She doesn’t know Kara, she’s the new receptionist at the law firm Lena works for, but she’s heard rumors of their current situation. No doubt from overhearing Lena scream at Kara over the phone a few weeks ago. 

Kara had called to ask her how ‘legal’ it would be to tear down their old fence and rebuild a new one without getting a permit from the city. 

Lena, of course, answered by telling her to sign the divorce papers. It wasn’t said quietly or calmly. She knows Kara’s trying to slither back into her life, sending texts every day, calling her to ask for things when she could easily use the world’s fastest search engine instead. 

It’s absolutely infuriating, maddening, and Lena did not possess the time nor the energy to deal with it. 

So, Kara walks into the living room and introduces herself as Lena’s wife—Lena’s already gritting her teeth at this point. Eve then turns towards Lena with a questioning look on her face. 

“Aren’t you two divorced?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Their answers overlap. 

Eve’s frown deepens. 

“We’re working on it,” Kara says. 

Lena’s jaw clenches. 

Kara takes a seat next to her on the couch. Right. Next. To. Her. Then she drapes her arm behind Lena’s head.

She’s used to this behavior from her ex-wife, Kara would always act possessive and jealous around new people. She wanted them to know Lena was taken, that she was hers, and that they were happy together.

It used to make Lena feel wanted, that Kara’s biggest fear was to lose her to someone else coming in and whisking her away. Now it’s just grating, and completely unrequited, especially after what Kara did. 

“ _Working_ on getting her to sign the divorce papers.” Lena can feel Kara’s eyes on her, but she keeps sipping her glass of wine and stares straight ahead at Eve. 

There’s no room for her to move away, she’s trapped between the armrest and Kara. She hates her body for betraying her. She hates that she welcomes the heat of Kara’s body, that she recognizes the smell of her shampoo, that it reminds her of how Kara was once her home. 

“We’re working on us,” Kara corrects, leveling her stare at Eve. 

She’s sizing her up, Lena’s seen her do it countless times in the past. Though, this time it’s comical. Eve is arguably half of Kara’s size, lithe and petite where Lena’s wife—ex-wife, is tall and muscular and toned from years of playing sports. 

They’re both blondes. They both have blue eyes. Those are the only resemblances. 

This entire conversation has been incredibly awkward. She can’t imagine how out of place Eve must feel, thrown into their ridiculous marital battle. She didn’t sign up for this.

Truthfully, neither did Lena. 

She drops her hand on Kara’s thigh, something that would look like a loving gesture to any mine else, but the squeeze she adds sends Kara a message. A message she knows all too well.

Lena’s about to scream her head off.

“Honey, why don’t you come up with me to my room? I have one of your shirts and I’m sure you’d like it back.”

It sounds robotic, and it’s supposed to, because it’s fake. It’s not a complete lie, though. She does have Kara’s hockey sweatshirt up there, but she has zero intentions of giving it to her. 

Sending a quick apologetic glance in Eve’s direction, Lena grasps Kara’s hand, fingers grazing her wedding band, as she drags her into Sam’s guest bedroom, which has been _her_ bedroom for nine months now. 

“What the _hell_ was that?” Lena demands.

“Who is she?” Kara counters, arms crossed and chin up. 

“You’re jealous,” Lena laughs, slams the door shut behind them. “It feels like shit doesn’t it? I feel that every day, Kara. Every single day. The only thing that I see when I look at you is Lucy and what you did with her. The only time I don’t is when we have sex, because I know that I have you then.”

“You always had me. You still do, Lucy was—"

“Shut up!” Lena cuts her off. She snaps. There’s ice in her voice, a coldness in her eyes. She doesn’t want to hear that Lucy means nothing to her, that she doesn’t love her and never will. It just makes it worse.

Kara moves closer. Lena knows she wants to comfort her, and because she’s powerless to resist her pull, the magnetism between them that always existed and always will exist, Lena recoils. She moves further back where Kara can’t reach her. The room isn’t big enough. She wants nothing more than to feel Kara’s arms around her, to be squeezed against her taller frame, but for her sake, she can’t cross that line.

So, she wraps her arms around herself instead, creating an extra barrier between Kara and the most vulnerable parts of her: her heart. 

“Don’t touch me.” 

Kara’s eyes move down to the space between them, the words cutting deeper than Lena intended, perhaps. She can’t find it in herself to feel guilty. Not tonight. Not anymore. 

“I thought we were getting better.”

Lena’s scoff is one of disbelief. Surely, Kara isn’t that blind. “You think that letting you fuck me while I still hate your guts is us ‘getting better’?”

They’re at their absolute worst, and she knows Kara sees that as well. She chooses to ignore it, maybe because they had a great time at the quarry disposing of the copious amounts of bottled liquor Kara had.

Truth be told, Lena enjoyed that night. It felt like before. Like they were two people in love, unbothered by the world around them. But they’re not living in a fantasy land where she can just forget that Kara cheated on her. This is the real world, and there is a very real storm brewing inside of her. 

“Just tell me how I can fix it.” 

“Why did you do it? And don’t you _dare_ say that you don’t know. You owe me a fucking answer.” 

It’s the only question that’s been on Lena’s mind ever since Kara confessed her infidelity. Was she not enough for Kara? Did she not satisfy her anymore? Did she fall out of love?

Not knowing was the absolute worst torture Lena could think of, but she fears that finding out could be worse. 

“I can’t let myself be happy.” 

So, that’s what it is? Kara being hell-bent on sabotaging her life. Her happiness. Their marriage. Because of her own demons. Because she can’t love herself like Lena knows she’s capable of loving others. 

If Lucy was just a drunken mistake, that Kara had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and she got caught in the moment, her decision-making rendered useless because of how intoxicated she was, then it really is worse than what Lena could ever have imagined. 

She’s standing in front of a woman she gave her heart to, a woman who jeopardized their futures and their relationship, because of a drunken mistake. For sex she probably doesn’t even fucking remember. 

“Other than the Danvers taking me in, you’re the only good thing in my life, Lena.”

When Lena first met her, Kara was taking all sorts of substances. Mixing them with little regard for her life or her health. She was the one that stood by her when she overdosed—Alex was away, training to become a police officer.

Lena was the one that slept on an uncomfortable chair at the hospital, waiting, hoping, praying that Kara would wake up without severe and lasting brain damage. 

Lena gave her an ultimatum then, the moment she caught disorientated blue eyes fluttering open, her gaze automatically snapping to Lena’s face tinged red from crying. 

‘It’s me or the drugs’, she told her then. 

Kara quit using that day. 

Lena can’t believe that the very same Kara who quit various amounts of toxic substances cold turkey for her, had cheated on her because she was too drunk to realize what she was doing. 

If there is ever a moment that Lena let herself feel hatred for Kara, this is it. 

“Leave. And sign the fucking papers already.” 

It’s an automatism at this point, imploring Kara to sign the petition for divorce she knows is still idly sitting in the very same spot where Kara had first dropped them after receiving them in the mail. 

Maybe it’s a defense mechanism. Or maybe she’s giving Kara an out. Taunting her even, to give up on them with finality. 

She had that night, though. Kara had given up on them even if it was only for a few hours. When she chose to cheat on her, Kara had relinquished her right to call Lena her wife. 

Lena needs to be alone. She doesn’t have the energy to fight for them any longer. She can’t possibly work past this when Kara is smothering her, calling her, texting her, inviting herself over where she lives.

It’s too much all at once and Lena’s one moment away from self-imploding on the spot. 

It’s not all Kara’s fault, though. Lena had initiated the sex. Their therapist was right when she told them they couldn’t leave the past behind when they both kept digging it up by clinging to how they used to be.

Maybe they do need to start over. Control-alt-delete the last nine years and build a completely new relationship upon something sturdy. 

It’s the only way Lena can start to trust Kara again. 

Sam finds her that night, sitting on the edge of a bed that’s arguably less comfortable than the one she and Kara used to share, sobbing into her hands. 

Lena cuts off most contact with Kara, she only sees her during their therapy sessions while she attempts to figure out if she can live with what she did to her. She’ll always love Kara, that wouldn’t change even if some days she wishes she could stop. But, one question remains, if Lena can trust her with her heart again. 

She still hasn’t figured that out yet.

The sudden separation after nearly a month of being physically intimate is akin to going through withdrawal. She’s seen what it did to Kara first hand, and it hasn’t been kind to Lena.

Her therapist suggests she take some time off of work, so she does. Kara is too stubborn and proud to do so.

Most nights Lena falls asleep crying. One night, Ruby enters the guest bedroom, holding the box that holds the game of Scrabble she loves to play, only to find Lena curled on one side of the bed, body wracked with heavy sobs. 

Both Sam and Ruby fall asleep with her. She feels safe, warm amidst the temperature dropping as Winter slowly creeps upon them. And most importantly, she feels loved. 

The next morning Lena awakes to a text from Kara, it’s a picture of Slinky and Noah sleeping on her side of the bed. 

She bursts into tears. 

By the next therapy session, Lena is determined. Kara greets her when she sits down on the opposite end of the now-familiar couch.

“Did you sign the papers yet, honey?”

Lena doesn’t look up from her phone when she speaks. She’s browsing dinner recipes for tonight, it’s Ruby’s birthday and she wants to cook her something special. 

“Nope,” Kara answers with a chuckle. 

They both know she isn’t going to, it's become more of a joke than anything. 

Their therapist enters the office, unaware of the tension in the room. She congratulates them on keeping their distances, on putting an end to their physical relationship, which in retrospect, had been one very messed up side effect of their fallout.

She asks about their goals for their relationship, where each of them sees themselves in a year from now. 

Lena says she wants to be in _her_ house, and whether or not Kara is there along with her, she doesn’t say. She’s not sure she knows the answer to that question herself. She definitely sees Slinky and Noah there, though. 

She catches Kara smiling at that. 

Kara, for her part, says she wants to watch the stars with Lena in _their_ backyard. 

After that session, Lena cries in her car. Hard. 

During their next appointment, Lena can tell that not seeing each other regularly has been hard on Kara too. She appears nervous, fidgety like she’s fighting against the compulsive need to run into Lena’s arms and pick her up off the ground. 

Lena understands. She misses her too. Every day. 

The therapist gives them her assessment of the behavior she recognized over the past few months. She points out Lena’s harshness and unwillingness to accept that Kara wants to fix things, that she’s being unnecessarily hostile, and isn’t cooperating. She reminds Lena that they have to work as a team now more than ever.

Lena nods. She’s right.

She then explains to Kara that no matter what she does, she can’t force forgiveness, that Lena has to choose it on her own. 

It helps. 

Lena’s still angry, though. She doesn’t invite Kara to dinner like Sam had asked her to. 

She’s there anyway when Lena gets to Sam’s. Briefly, she wonders how Kara got there first, then she’s reminded of all the times they were pulled over because _someone_ was driving well over the speed limit. 

They haven’t seen each other outside of therapy for a month and besides, Lena’s in a good mood this evening. So, she doesn’t pull Sam aside to yell at her for inviting Kara herself. Instead, she walks towards Kara, who’s sitting on the kitchen counter, legs swinging. 

“You didn’t tell me,” Kara says. She doesn’t look hurt. 

Lena shrugs, leaning back against the stainless steel fridge. “You didn’t sign the papers.” 

They share a laugh.

Lena’s chopping vegetables on the counter. She’s focused on the rhythmic sounds of the knife hitting the cutting board when Kara’s suddenly behind her. She can smell her shampoo before she feels the large hand spread out on her hip. 

“Kara, the therapist said—“

“I know what she said.” 

Kara breathes against her neck and Lena shivers. She drops the knife and grips the edges of the counter with both hands

Kara moves in closer still, pressing her front to Lena’s back, nuzzling her neck and nothing more.

They’re in a relatively good place. Not perfect, of course, Lena’s still very much figuring out how to trust Kara again, but they’re definitely better than they were last month.

She wants Kara, badly, but she doesn’t want their progress to suddenly halt just because they couldn’t control their desire. 

Sam interrupts them. “Where are my—” 

Lena thanks God in the high heavens. She was beginning to think she wasn’t going to be able to push Kara away. 

They break apart quickly, too quickly. Lena’s certain Sam notices. She does. 

“What was _that_?” Sam asks, her voice low when Kara moves away to help her sister the dining table. 

“Shut up.” She takes a deep breath, gripping the back of her neck and closing her eyes. She can feel the pain there, running along the lines of her neck. Her back and her shoulders are rigid with tension. 

Then, Sam gives her the best piece of advice she could have asked for—better than the therapist they pay for that exact purpose. 

“Babe, don’t you think you’re putting too much pressure on yourself? Just let things progress naturally.” 

She wants to hug her then, and kiss her too. Maybe she’ll do it in front of Kara as payback. Lena couldn’t do that to Alex, though. She was always the sweetest, waiting to give her the shovel talk until their first year anniversary. But Alex probably didn’t plan that Kara was going to be the one to hurt Lena. 

“Thanks.” 

“That’ll be two-hundred dollars.” Sam winks at her.

Lena laughs and Kara turns to smile at her. She smiles back. 

Sam kisses the side of her head and Lena exhales, letting out a nervous breath. 

After that, Lena lets Kara in little by little. She lets Kara place a hand in the middle of her back when she opens the door of the therapist's office for her.

She lets Kara take her hand during the session. She lets her trace her fingers over Lena’s wedding and engagement rings. She knows it’s an automatic gesture, Kara always did it absentmindedly. It stirs up tenderness instead of anger. 

That’s progress, Lena thinks. 

When Kara is on night shift, Lena sneaks into her home. It’s beyond ridiculous because it’s _her_ home too, she has a key, so it really shouldn’t be classified as _sneaking_. 

She sleeps with Noah and Slinky on _her_ bed. Normally, she wouldn’t let the dog on there considering he’ll stink up the covers, but she really missed them. She lets it pass for today. 

She comes back all week. While she’s standing in their yard, wearing one of Kara’s oversized jumpers—she was freezing her tits off without a jacket—watching their white, black and brown beagle run after the tennis ball she tosses, she sends Kara a text:

‘I'm moving back in’.

It’s _her_ house. _She_ had been cheated on. Lena doesn’t know why she left in the first place, she should have stayed. 

That’s a lie. She knows why she left, though. Lena couldn’t even look at Kara, much less live with her ten months ago. She isn’t quite ready to say that she’ll sleep in the same room as her, but she is ready to come back home. 

It is _her_ home too, after all. 

Her phone buzzes in her back pocket a few minutes later. It’s Kara.

‘Slinky and Noah are gonna be so happy!!!’

Now, if Lena hadn’t known her for almost ten years, she would be offended, but she’s fluent in the non-verbal language Kara speaks in.

In reality, that text is code for: ‘I’m so happy!!!’

Lena is too. Sort of. Maybe. Either way, she’s getting there closer every day. 

Saying goodbye to Sam and Ruby is harder than Lena had anticipated. They’re standing outside in the cold, the exhaust from her car visible. 

Lena really hates winter. 

“I got used to having you around,” Sam says. 

Lena smiles and stares down at her feet. Suddenly timid about the situation and how she squatted her best friend’s house—her life—for eleven months. 

“How could I ever repay you? It’s been nearly a year.” There’s embarrassment in her tone. 

But Sam shuts that down quickly. “Are you high? You’re family, Lena. There’s always room for you here. And if it doesn’t work out—”

“I know.” Lena pulls her in a hug because, dammit, she’s really fucking tired of crying in front of Sam. 

_I’m family_. 

Lena cries anyway, they both do. They squeeze each other more than is truly comfortable, but it’s cold out and it warms them up if only for a little bit.

“I love you.”

“Love you too, babe.” 

A week after moving back home teaches Lena a few things, or rather, refreshes her memory. In the year they were apart, Kara still hasn’t learned to pick up her damn clothes off the damn floor. 

Lena growls when she nearly trips on jeans that had been nonchalantly discarded near the door.

“Pick up your fucking clothes off my fucking bedroom floor!”

They’re sleeping in the same room. Lena has slept in someone else’s bed for too long and Kara is too bull-headed to sleep in their guest bedroom. They haven’t made love yet, however. Lena thinks it’s for the better. 

She hears Kara run up the stairs, she apologizes while she picks up her jeans and socks, rolls them up in a ball, and shoots them in the clothes hamper, no doubt imagining it’s a basketball net. Lena rolls her eyes when Kara cheers for the fake three-point shot she lands. 

She then moves towards Lena, her work blouse stark white and crisp. The buttons are undone and it’s half-tucked into her navy pants. There’s a mischievous glint in her ocean blue eyes. 

Lena backs up, putting her hand up. “If you think you’re going to put your hands on me after they touched your dirty socks...” her warning is clear, but it doesn’t work. It never does.

Kara chases her down the stairs and into the living room. Lena jumps over the back of the couch, but Kara moves around it so Lena ends up quite literally jumping into the arms of the beast. 

They both fall on the couch, Kara half on top of her. They kiss slowly knowing it won’t lead to anything, Lena wouldn’t let it. 

Keeping sex out of the equation has been helpful towards their progress at mending their relationship. Their therapist told them that they used sex as a means to communicate, but without having an actual conversation after, all the things that are left unsaid only serve to drive a wedge between them and push them apart instead of bringing them closer, as physical intimacy _should_. 

Maybe all the money they poured into their therapy sessions isn’t lost after all. 

“You’ll be late for work.” 

“I hate working nights now that you’re back.”

Lena’s smiling as she traces Kara’s bottom lip with her thumb. “You’ll manage.” 

“Maybe.”

They part with a kiss. 

Lena watches Kara hopping up and down as she tries to push her foot inside her boot hastily. She’s already late and she forgets her car keys, as usual. Lena spots them on the coffee table, and as usual, she doesn’t tell her. When Kara runs back inside, Lena throws them at her from her position on the couch. Kara makes a catch worthy of an NFL wide receiver. 

“Loveyoubye!”

She rushes the words out and slams the door behind her. 

The dog startles, jumping up and barking.

Lena sighs. 

One day the entire door frame is going to come down. That woman does _not_ know what gentle means. She’s seen Kara break countless things over the decade she’s known her. Remotes, video game controllers, chairs, car handles— _plural_ —bottles, phones, and more specifically, Lena’s phone. Sometimes she wonders if Kara is a descendent of Hercules. 

She's grateful for the time she can spend alone in her house, though. She’ll read for hours with a cup of tea and the sounds of Noah snoring at her feet, and Slinky curled in her lap; a ball of orange fur exuding more warmth than her tea. 

It’s peaceful and quiet and exactly what Lena needs. Not working has been a blessing, and though she misses the debates and the adrenaline rush that came with it, her mental health greatly improves during her time away from the courtroom. 

Another week passes, Kara is back on day shift. Lena’s having a bad day. She can’t stand Kara. She can’t bear being near her, looking at her, hearing her talk—everything about her makes Lena want to lash out. 

They sit on opposite ends of their sectional that night. Kara attempts to start a conversation a few times but Lena shuts her down with bite behind her words. 

They flip through the channels and settle on a home renovating show. Kara keeps talking about the deck she wants to build in their backyard. An idea she’s had since they moved into the house and yet never started. 

Wordlessly, Lena stands up and makes her way to the bedroom where she doesn’t sleep because she’s not tired. Not physically, at least. Maybe it’s just seasonal depression. It’s dark out around dinner time with minimal sun rays during the day. The atmosphere is drab, and dark, like a Stephen King novel. 

Kara joins her eventually. She doesn’t seem tired either when she lays on her back beside Lena, on hand behind her head, eyes open and staring at the ceiling. 

Lena can practically hear the gears in her head churning noisily. Kara’s wondering what she did wrong, perhaps.

She should know. 

Lena turns to her side, facing her wife. She doesn’t call her ex-wife anymore. More progress, Lena thinks. 

Kara mirrors her movements and now they’re both staring at each other, silently. Noah shuffles onto the bed and slithers in between their bodies. He settles down with a happy little sigh. 

Lena moves her hand up to Kara’s face, her thumb trailing a path down her bottom lip, down her chin. 

“Are we going to be okay?” Lena asks.

“Yeah.” 

“Why?”

“Because I love you.” 

Kara takes her hand then and kisses the back of it. It’s gentle, and soft, the exact opposite of how she closes doors and handles everything else like a total brute. 

Slinky chooses this moment to hop on the bed and step over Kara’s face, one of his paws almost landing into her open eye. She grumbles and pushes him off. He walks over to Lena’s pillow and settles himself just above her head. 

“Figures,” Kara says with a slight pout.

“What?”

“He did always like you better.”   
  
“You’re jealous of a cat now?”

”I don’t get jealous.”

Lena jokingly pushes Kara’s grinning face away. They laugh at the absurdity of the moment, though neither will admit it’s the most comfortable they’ve felt with each other in weeks. 

“I love you too.” 

Kara drapes her arm over Lena’s side, on top of Noah, and presses her hand to her back, pushing them closer together, squeezing the dog between them. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Lena falls asleep with the sounds of Slinky purring on top of Lena’s head and Noah and Kara snoring in perfect synchrony. 

They’ll be okay.

She’s sure of it. Until she walks into her home on a Saturday afternoon and hears another voice. A man’s voice. It’s James. Kara’s fellow co-worker and friend.

When she walks into the kitchen, her eyes snap to the beer in Kara’s hand instantly. 

_You have to be fucking kidding me._

“Lena, hi.” He says with a large, toothy smile. He's always been handsome, but not more than Kara and that’s Lena’s totally unbiased opinion on the matter.

“You’re bringing alcohol to my previously alcoholic wife now, James?”

He trips over his words, eyes wide in fear. “S-sorry I didn’t—she didn’t say.”

“It’s just one beer, Lena.”

Kara has the audacity to reduce her addiction to the ‘just one beer’ argument. Lena’s livid.

_You fucking asshole._

She bites her tongue, the words almost spilling out of her mouth. Bad-mouthing her wife in front of her friend wouldn’t be a good idea and she's too angry to have this conversation in front of James. So, before she says something she regrets, Lena retreats to her bedroom.

She knows that Kara watches her walk away, she can feel her eyes on the back of her head. Kara better fucking follow her up here if she knows that’s good for her. She does, and she also closes the door behind her to give them the privacy they need.

“You’re drinking again.” She’s not asking, she’s merely observing. 

“We’re on vacation. He wanted to celebrate.” 

Lena raises a brow. “Celebrate.”

“He’s going to help me build the deck.”

“And you need beer for that?”

Kara becomes visibly agitated then, speaking while gesturing. “What the fuck am I supposed to say to them, Lena? ‘Sorry I can’t have one beer because I’m a stupid alcoholic fuck up?’”

An accurate statement, but still, perhaps she could have worded it better. Kara never swears, except when she’s on the defensive. Lena laughs, the argument is an excuse.

“How about ‘no, thank you’? You don’t have to spill your entire life story to refuse a fucking drink, Kara.”

The fight ends there because Kara knows she's right. She gets a text from her wife, after, later in the day while she's still working in the yard with James and now Winn. It says that she dumped the beer and isn’t going to have any. Lena was planning to go out and help them, she even braided her hair so it wouldn’t get in the way, but Sam knocks at her door. 

Lena knows she’s checking up on her, and she’s grateful for it. 

“You two bang yet?”

Sam always has such a way with words. A real poet. A wordsmith. 

“No. We’re waiting.” 

“She’s still pissing you off?”

“When has she not?”

“You still love her though?”

“I never stopped.” 

Lena tells her about the beer issue, and Sam says that she might have overreacted a bit. Sam's right, of course. She shouldn’t have involved James. That issue is should have stayed between her and Kara.

So, when everyone departs, leaving the backyard with the skeleton of a deck behind, Lena heads out for a drive and comes back with a case of non-alcoholic beer. She sets it down on the kitchen table, which is in full view of Kara, who’s sitting on the couch—the two rooms separated only by a large square archway. 

It’s a truce. 

“I shouldn’t have involved your friend.”

Kara stands closes the TV, throws the remote on the couch beside her, and stands up, meeting Lena in the kitchen.

“I shouldn’t have taken the beer.”

So, here they are, even. 

“Non-alcoholic beer?” Kara asks with a small smile, reading the label with surprise. 

Lena knows that most non-alcoholic beverages taste like absolute garbage, which is why she had asked the clerk at the store for help. 

“They said this was the best-tasting one they had.” 

They stand in _their_ kitchen, hugging for a long time. Kara whispers a thank you while kissing the top of Lena’s head. Kara isn’t the only one who had shit to work through, Lena did too. And Little by little, they’re starting to work as a team again. Even early in the relationship, she and Kara were always in sync. It’s starting to come back now. 

When Lena starts to fidget with her fingers while they’re watching TV, Kara walks into the kitchen and pours her a glass of wine. 

When Kara has a rough day at work and tells Lena they lost a kid on the ride to the hospital, Lena holds her until she stops crying. 

Lena thinks she's ready to make love, but she’s not sure how to bring it up to her wife. She’s on the phone with Sam while she’s driving home, her best friend's voice coming through the car’s speakers. 

“Just jump her,” Sam says as if it’s that simple. It never is with them. 

“What if _she’s_ not ready?”

“Then ask her.” 

“That’s not very romantic.” 

“Yeah, I mean, it’s a total boner killer, but your situation is different, babe.”

Before Lena has time to answer, something crashes into her car, driver’s side. The Toyota is propelled into the ditch to the right side of the road from the force of the impact. 

The sound of metal twisting is the last thing Lena hears. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SORRY 
> 
> (for not being sorry)
> 
> My Tumblr if y'all so inclined: sups-in-my-corp.tumblr.com


	4. Winter part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara's POV

The first therapy session after Lena moves back in is emotionally taxing for both of them. Kara is forced to be vulnerable, something she already dreads without an audience, and to face demons she let fester and grow for far too long.

Lena’s supportive during the entire session, and Kara’s not entirely sure she deserves it. No, she’s certain that she doesn’t. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? When Lena seems willing, most days, to give her a second chance. 

It’s not been easy on her, Kara understands. She sees it, how some days Lena needs to be left alone. So, Kara makes herself scarce. Works in the garage, and draws up plans to build Lena a swing for the porch, and the damn deck she’s been wanting to make since they moved in. 

“How are things at home?” The therapist asks, glasses canted down her nose. 

She has her usual notepad resting on her crossed legs—Kara wonders if she actually writes notes in there or if she just has both of their names scribbled on top too of each page, then list behaviors underneath as she tries to figure out who’s the top and who’s the bottom. 

That particular question is easy for Kara to answer. The home they purchased when they first got engaged felt empty without Lena. Even with two animals, Kara knew something was missing. 

Physically, she missed Lena’s presence. Her calm energy on lazy mornings when she would quietly read in bed, or in the living room, or outside on the porch—that's why she had asked Kara to make her a bench or a swing in the first place. 

Emotionally, Kara missed her like she suddenly lost a limb. Like she had to readjust how to do everything differently. Without her best friend. Without her lover. Without her wife. 

It was more painful than any withdrawal she ever suffered through. Lena had been by her side for that too. 

“Good. Great.”

She senses Lena’s unease. Did she not believe Kara’s answer to be truthful? Despite their separation, Kara still knows her wife. She can read the way Lena’s staring straight down at her lap, wringing her fingers together. Lena wants to say something, but she’s not sure how. 

She turns to Kara, most likely sensing her watching. They’ve always been so attuned to each other that way. Lena stares at her with a small, wistful smile. Kara wishes she could make it disappear. Make her laugh. She loves her laugh. 

Does she regret coming back?

Lena turns to the therapist, breaking eye contact with her as if it’s painful to do so; as if there are a million things she needs to say to Kara at that very moment. 

“I lash out.” Lena sighs, eyes falling to her lap again. “Some days, all I can think about is Kara and Lucy.” 

“And those painful feelings you have, they used to be there constantly. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

“Only on those days.” 

Kara knows she overstepped when Lena moved out. When she didn’t see or hear from her for five months. And despite everything, despite trying so hard to forcefully patch up something only time can heal, all she wants is for Lena to be happy again. 

She finds some comfort in knowing that Lena’s doing better emotionally. 

“And how do you deal with these episodes, Kara?”

She fights against the urge to turn to Lena again. Whenever she has a difficult question to answer, she always turns to her. For comfort, for assurance, for support.

“She has every right to be angry. I give her the space she needs.”

Kara’s confident in her answer, but the therapist sighs and takes off her glasses.

“If you don’t learn to forgive yourself, the forgiveness you’re desperately seeking from your wife won’t mean anything—I’m not saying to stop giving her space when she needs it, and Lena you have to demand it—but Kara, there are two people in this relationship and you’re one of them. If you ignore your mental health, it will stunt progress for you both, as a couple, not _only_ as individuals.”

The words sting, not because they’re harsh, but because they ring true. Spot on, actually. 

Kara’s never truly forgiven herself for all that she’s done. Not for the time she stole money from Eliza to buy more drugs, not for crashing Alex’s first car on her birthday, and certainly not for cheating on her wife. She’s hurt countless people on her path to self-destruction, and the ones she loves the most always received the worst of it. 

She almost startles when Lena takes her hand, threads their fingers together, and brings their joined hands into her lap. 

“Is there something you want to say to her, Lena?”

There’s a long stretch of silence after their therapist lightly presses them to confront each other directly. Deep, green eyes bore into hers like Lena’s not looking at the mistakes she’s made, or the person she left herself become by ignoring the mental toll her actions had on her. 

Lena’s staring straight at her wife. Her lover. Her best friend. 

“I love you.” 

It’s the first time Lena’s said it since everything that happened. She wishes she could see her gentle smile clearer, as her vision is far too blurred with tears. 

Maybe Lena’s not ready to forgive her yet, but those three words are enough for Kara. Enough to keep her holding on to the sliver of hope that they’ll be okay again. 

Maybe not right now, probably not tomorrow, but someday, Kara knows they will.

They’re walking to her truck after—they had driven to the appointment together—when Lena suddenly steps in front of Kara and stops, blocking her path. 

She traces the lines of Lena’s face. The face she came to know intimately, the one she sees when she closes her eyes. She looks exhausted, more so than Kara. The session was hard, but Kara feels like they both made really good progress. 

“Give me your keys.”

This is it, Kara thinks. Lena’s going to let her walk all the way back home. She’s at peace with it. She deserves nothing less. 

Maybe ‘really good progress’ is a bit of a stretch.

So, Kara fishes them from the front pocket of her jeans, the Darth Vader head keychain clanking along with the various keys as she drops them in Lena’s open palm. 

Ever since she’s known her, Lena has always been an adventurer. Someone who enjoys planning spontaneous outings and dates. It’s one of the many things Kara truly loves about her. 

So, when Lena takes her hand in hers and leads them to the parked truck Kara’s been driving around since they started dating and refuses to change for a newer model—because buying a new car is the worst business you can do—Kara really shouldn’t be surprised. 

She shouldn’t be surprised that Lena hops behind the wheel of her old worn down Ford and complains about how far the pedals are. She shouldn’t be surprised when Lena pulls up and parks the truck in the lot of Kara’s favorite ice-cream shop. 

But she is. 

It’s the only shop that lets her combine and mix five different flavors.

If Lena could still love her. If she could even forgive her someday, not today, probably not tomorrow, but someday, then perhaps it’s time for Kara to start figuring out how to love herself too. 

Maybe then she can change. 

Maybe then she can be the partner Lena deserves. 

It’s mostly empty when they enter, it’s almost eight o’clock and besides, it’s winter. Lena says that Kara’s the only person crazy enough to want frozen deserts when it’s equally freezing outside. 

Kara calls her bluff when she orders something too.

“Lena?”

She hums in acknowledgment around a spoonful of vanilla ice cream with chocolate drizzle and crushed cashews. 

“I really am sorry.”

She doesn’t know what else to say, or how to say it. It isn’t going to change anything, she isn’t expecting it too, and though her actions over the past year speak louder and clearer than her words ever could, she needs Lena to know that she truly _is_ sorry for what she did. That she never intends to do it again, that she’ll gladly spend the rest of their marriage making it up to her. 

‘Sorry’ is too simple of an apology to communicate the complexity of what she’s thinking, but she knows Lena understands exactly what she means.

“Thank you for saying it.” 

The real definition: ‘thank you for _meaning_ it’. 

One of the many things Kara had picked up over the years is how to decipher the true connotation behind Lena’s words. And how, above all of that, Lena really hates when people aren't sincere. Kara always is, it's why she told Lena about her infidelity the next day.

She orders two more times, even if she’ll be so hyped up on sugar when they get home that Lena will find her unbearable, her left leg already bouncing up and down under the table of the booth they’re seated at. She didn’t want this night to end. 

Lena ‘samples’ some of Kara’s ice cream, digging in and taking large spoonfuls after refusing at least a dozen times to order another one, claiming she isn’t hungry enough to eat an entire bowl by herself while simultaneously eating half of Kara’s.

She doesn’t mind. They have a spoon battle, using them as lightsabers. Lena wins. ‘If only you knew the power of the dark side’, she says. Kara falls a little more in love with her then. 

It’s the best date they’ve ever been on, Kara thinks. It even tops the one where Lena, in her rebellious youth, coerced Kara into jumping a fence into a stranger’s yard and skinny dipping in their very large pool. 

But, Kara being Kara has to put an end to their ongoing streak of good days. It’s important to note that her wife definitely has a talent for nagging, Kara realizes, whereas she has a talent for screwing up. 

She accepts a beer from James. Maybe out of habit, but mostly because she’s too embarrassed to share how she’s been addicted to various substances too many times to count, that she has no self-control and can’t stop with just one. Admitting this to anyone else but her wife, and her sister, is absolutely mortifying. 

So, she grabs the offered beer from his hands. She knows it’s a stupid choice, she understands how idiotic it is when Lena enters the kitchen and sees it clutched in her hand. The bottle is cold but it’s nothing compared to the chilling glare Lena levels her with. 

Kara already knows she’s in deep shit, even before she meets Lena up in their bedroom after telling James she’ll be right back.

He had given her a look of sympathy then. He knew what she was walking into. 

She tries to defend her actions. That’s also a mistake. There’s no defending what she did. She has to accept that she fucked up and admit it, not only to herself but to Lena as well. 

She dumps the beer in the kitchen sink, turning it upside down until it’s empty. How foolish she was to think that she could ever drink just _one_ beer. That one drink won’t turn to two and three and ten. 

She watches the malty liquid drip down into the train, she can almost hear the distant screams of frat boys and girls, shrieking in horror at the wasted beer. 

She laughs at her less than sane thought, maybe she did get hit in the head by one too many pucks. 

“So, how much trouble you in?”

They’re digging the holes where the deck’s supporting beams will go. The ground is hard, not frozen, but almost. She should have started this months ago.

“Oh, you know, the usual.” 

If Lena was to be a judge, Kara would be sentenced to 25 to life. Again, not undeserved. 

“I can’t believe she puts up with you.” 

“I must be the luckiest asshole on this planet.” 

“Luckiest? I don’t know about that. Biggest? I’d believe it.” 

“Well, either way, her asshole wife is building her a big, beautiful deck.” Kara gestures with her hand at the chaotic mess their backyard is in right now.

“ _We’re_ building her a big, beautiful deck.” 

Kara shrugs off her jacket, throws it on the stack of two-by-fours. She has a sweater underneath, not suitable for this cold weather, but she’s already drenched in sweat underneath it. 

If Lena would see her now, she’d warn Kara that she’ll catch her death, cross her arms and glare at her until she’d throw the jacket back on. 

Lena’s not coming down outside today, though. 

“You know I’m going to take all the credit for doing this, right?” 

“Biggest asshole is correct after all.” 

Kara is growing tired of being called an asshole. She’s tired of calling herself an asshole. Nonetheless, she’s thankful James stood by her. Lucy is his friend too, or was, from what he’s told Kara. 

But maybe this isn’t about deserving. Maybe this is about figuring out who truly cares for her, who won’t pull punches, and who will stick with her while she figures out how to become a better version of herself. 

It’s not their job to teach her, Kara has to do that work by herself, but without their love and support, she’d have no leg to stand on. James certainly fits that profile, her sister too, but most of all, Lena and the sheer strength and willpower she exudes is the main reason she keeps going. 

And maybe, just maybe, it’s time she makes some room for herself on that list too.

That night when they go to bed, Lena slips under the covers beside her, scooting right up against Kara’s side and lays her head down underneath her chin. Kara wraps her arms around her tightly, afraid that if she doesn’t, she’ll leave again. 

That’s just the thing about fears, oftentimes they’re a simple fabrication of her overactive imagination. While other times, she’s seen the worst of her fears come to life before her. 

She doesn’t realize that the comfort and peace she’s feeling when Lena shuffles closer, tightens her arm around her waist that much more, is about to be ripped away from her grasp. 

When the short but welcomed vacation ends, Kara starts her first rotation back on night shift. At least the deck is done, she thinks. They’ll still need to stain it though, a job Kara will undertake in the spring. 

During the past week, most of her friends came by to lend a hand, Lena helping her the most after Kara and James finished laying down the supporting beams and skeleton of the deck. 

Kara is holding the pale, unvarnished wooden planks down for her while Lena hammers them in. 

“You’re good with that.”

Lena glances at her from the corner of her eye, a small smirk tugging the corner of her lips. “I’m used to hammering down on hard heads.”

Kara barks out a laugh. Her wife is absolutely correct. She’s a metal nail, unyielding and difficult, whereas Lena is the hammer that commands it, guides it to where it needs to go. 

“I’m hoping you won’t have to do too much of that anymore.” 

It’s a promise, not only to herself but to her wife. She’s working on it. All that Kara can do now is strive to be better, every day, no matter how small the change. 

“I’ll hold you to that.” 

Kara thinks, looking at Lena’s rosy cheeks and wind-swept hair gathered in a loose French braid, that she’s truly the most beautiful creature God ever created. 

She and Winn are riding in the back of the ambulance, prepping the gurney, dispatched to a vehicle collision. One red sedan, one dark truck. The driver of the truck is male, intoxicated, and possibly mildly concussed. The female driver of the red sedan needs medical attention. 

That’s who the gurney is for. 

It’s not her first car accident. Kara’s been called as the first responder to worst pileups than this more times than she can count. She knows which type of injuries to look out for, how quickly a person can deteriorate on the way to the hospital from multiple bone fractures, respiratory issues, or internal bleeding. 

She’s seen it all, almost. She's ready. She’s prepared to do her job and save a life just like McDreamy. She shares more than his blue eyes, Kara thinks as she drops down from the back of the ambulance, snapping on rubber gloves. 

She and Winn both have matching yellow and navy jackets with grey stripes slung over their shoulders. Temperatures at night are below freezing, which means they’ll have to work quickly to get the patient strapped in the gurney and covered in blankets. 

Kara notices the car first. A red Toyota, it’s badly banged up, and it's the same model that Lena drives. 

It can’t be. 

Toyotas are very popular in America. They handle well and don’t guzzle gas like Kara’s truck does. Her wife isn’t the only person in National City who drives one. There’s one chance in fifty thousand, maybe even one-hundred thousand, that it’s Lena’s Toyota, that the totaled car belongs to her wife. 

It’s her. 

Kara could recognize her in a crowd full of pale-skinned and dark-haired women. It’s _her_ Lena whose head is slumped against the seat of her car, face bleeding from broken shards of glass exploding at the moment of impact. 

She shuts down, she has to. Her body is on autopilot while the firefighters present on scene pry the badly mangled door open and Winn cuts the seatbelt. Together, they lift Lena up onto the gurney. 

It’s like she’s watching herself doing these things outside of her body. She swallows thickly, her throat burning when Lena looks around frantically, disoriented and scared. 

Winn pales immediately when recognition flashes in his eyes. Kara wants to puke. She doesn’t want to hear him say it. She can’t. She has to do her job. If she doesn’t, it’s not just a stranger who’ll lose their life tonight, it’s her wife. 

Kara can’t move. Her eyes are suddenly fixed on the clearly drunken man who's being interrogated by one of the two officers on scene. Alcohol almost ruined her life once and now it could very well take Lena away from her. 

Kara had only taken her car once after a night of drinking, and Lena nearly ripped her head off. It was the first and last time she ever did.

Everything comes flooding back then, emotions overwhelming her. The blaring of the sirens too loud. The red, blue, and white lights flashing too bright. 

She doesn’t think when she approaches him. She only _feels_ when she grabs his collar and smashes her fist into his nose, the bone breaking under her knuckles. She watches the blood pour down his face when the officer rips her away from him, locking Kara’s arms behind her back and pinning her against their cruiser. 

The cold metal of the car’s hood is cold against her face. She calms, slightly, but attempts to shrug the officer off with a grunt. It’s amazing how such a small woman could easily manhandle someone twice her size. 

“You better put me in cuffs Sawyer, or I’ll fucking kill him.” 

“You shouldn’t be here, little Danvers. Who the hell dispatched you?”

Kara wonders the same thing. She, too, questions which idiot dispatched _her_ team to _her_ wife’s car crash. 

Maggie lets her go then, clamping a comforting hand on her shoulder. She says something about calling Alex, but Kara doesn’t hear the rest of her sentence. 

After watching Winn wheel Lena in the back of the ambulance with the help of one of the drivers, she immediately hunches over, one hand on the car’s hood and the other on her knee, spilling the half-digested dinner she had against the side of the cruiser. Some of it falls onto her boots.

She knows what’s going to happen. Maggie will have her sit in the cruiser to calm down, let Kara’s team take over and drive her the long way to the hospital. 

She can’t. She needs to be there. It’s her wife, for God’s sake. She can’t leave her alone.

She ignores Maggie calling out her name after shrugging her hand off and running towards the back of the ambulance. She argues with Winn then, yells in his face when he tries to turn her around. 

“She’s my wife, dammit! I _will_ go through you to get to her.”

It doesn’t take much convincing for him to open the door for her. Lena calls out her name as soon as Kara sits down next to the gurney. She takes her cold hand in hers, lifts it to her mouth, and brushes her lips against Lena’s knuckles. “I’m here. I’m here.” 

Winn flashes a light in Lena’s still wide eyes. 

“Responsive three out of four. Could have a mild concussion.”

He touches her left side. She doesn’t flinch. When moves to her right though, she hisses loudly and slaps his hand away. 

“Possible bruises or broken ribs.”

Lena looks at Kara like she wants to kill him. Or like she wants Kara to kill him, the blonde’s not really sure which. She’s fine with either of those options, though. 

Winn places the oxygen mask on Lena’s face, she starts to hyperventilate. Kara knows how it can make breathing seem harder as if it’s trying to suck the air out instead of helping her breathe. 

While she’s hooking the IV in, Kara notices the change in Lena’s breathing. It sounds like her airway is obstructed. Like she’s struggling to take air in. 

In an instant, the mask is off and Kara's cold stethoscope is pressed against Lena’s chest. The sound she hears is familiar. The broken ribs, one of them must have punctured her lung. 

“Her lung’s collapsing.” 

“Prepping the tube.” 

She and Winn have been working together for years, and she’s grateful that they’re always on the same page when a patient needs them the most. Her wife’s life is hanging in the balance and everything they both do, as a team, from this point on will affect her chances of recovering. 

Kara cuts Lena’s shirt open down the middle with a pair of large, surgical scissors. Her hands are surprisingly still. This is what she’s trained to do, to perform under pressure. It's the most pressure Kara’s ever faced. 

She made the right choice, being here. She couldn't have sat in that cruiser and kept her cool, waiting to hear if Lena died on the ride to the hospital or not, feeling completely useless.

Kara cleans the purpling skin around the right side of Lena’s thoracic cage, around the pleural space where she’ll have to make an incision and insert the tube in. It’s going to hurt like a bitch. 

She glances up at Winn and nods once. It’s their signal. He understands. 

He distracts her with a tornado of words, one of his most annoying traits that's extremely helpful in these situations.

“You’re in good hands Mrs. Luthor-Danvers. Kara’s one of the best! And I’m not so bad myself, you know. But Kara, she’s hard to resist. I’m sure you know that already, I mean, you _are_ married to her. Those piercing blue eyes, her muscular body—” 

Lena’s breathing is becoming more erratic, distressed, and it's not because she’s thinking of Kara’s well-toned body. Her heartbeat is rising, making the heart rate monitor chime rapidly.

Kara pushes the tube against her side and places a gentle hand on her shoulder. She’ll need to hold her down. 

_I’m so sorry, babe._

Winn takes Lena's Hand in his. “Okay, so this might sting a little bit. Squeeze my hand as hard as you need to.”

He’ll regret his words soon enough, Kara thinks. 

Lena doesn’t move when Kara cuts into her side, the adrenaline helping to numb the pain. The next part won’t be as easy, though. 

Kara takes a deep breath, preparing herself for what she’s about to do. In one swift motion and practiced ease, she pushes the tube inside, past the incision she made, and into the lung’s cavity. 

Lena lets out an anguished groan. It gets stuck in her throat, rumbles deep inside. 

“Ow! Ow! Ow!”

Kara would laugh at Winn’s rapid and high-pitched squealing but she can’t find the humor in trying to prevent her wife from dying of asphyxiation.

He told her to squeeze as hard as she could. His words, his problem.

Lena’s eyes are wide when she looks over at Kara, breathing through clenched teeth. The expression on her face clearly spells out ‘a little?!’

“You’re on her shitlist tonight, Schott.”

“Great. How do I survive?”

“You don’t.” 

_Better him than me actually_.

Kara spends the rest of the ride to National City Central Hospital obsessively checking Lena’s vitals, stroking her head and kissing her forehead, then yelling at Winn to check her vitals some more. 

She shouts at the driver, the new guy, tells him in a far from gentle tone to make smoother lane changes or she’ll throw him out and run him over. 

Winn apologizes on her behalf. 

She nearly throws hands with the doctor when they refuse her entry in Lena’s room when they arrive at the hospital. 

Winn explains it’s her wife. 

Later, after Winn leaves to finish his shift, Kara’s standing in front of the mirror of the bathroom that reeks of chemicals and leans forward onto the sink with a heavy sigh. 

Her jacket and work blouse had been discarded on the chair next to Lena’s hospital bed before she entered the bathroom. The white t-shirt she wears underneath is untucked from her pants. Her boots are heavy on her feet. 

Her hands are clean, the blood never touched her skin, but she’ll never get rid of the image of Lena’s blood on her gloves. 

She splashes water onto her face, it’s freezing but it doesn’t help. She’s used to working long shifts, she never had any trouble staying up. But after this call, Kara feels like she worked a double shift. 

She walks out of the bathroom, notices the cot they brought in, and placed next to Lena’s bed. When she sits down into it, preparing herself to lay down and perhaps get some rest, Lena’s gravely voice cuts through the silence. 

“You poked a hole in my chest and you’re just going to let me sleep up here alone?”

Lena’s teasing her, she knows that, but still, she fights against explaining herself. That she didn’t want to wake her, or hurt her, that there's not enough place for both of them on that shitty excuse for a bed. 

Instead of all that word vomit that would mean absolutely nothing, Kara settles next to Lena. She’s careful not to hurt her, moving onto her side so she’s taking the least amount of space she can without falling off. 

She moves Lena, slowly, until her back is comfortably half-lying against Kara’s chest. She lets Lena grip her hand and drape her arm over her stomach. She hears a slight wince out of Lena when she scoots a little closer.

“Careful.” 

“I’m alive because of you.”

“You’re alive because you’re strong.” 

One of the nurses comes by to check on Lena’s vitals one hour later. Kara startles awake at the sound of her voice.

“You’re either the most dedicated Medic I’ve ever seen, or you know her.” 

“She’s my wife,” Kara says while sitting up slowly. 

Lena grumbles under her breath and Kara’s heart jumps at the sound. 

“She’s lucky.” 

She lets out a terse chuckle. The sight of the numerous cuts on Lena’s face, although clean, is enough to make Kara want to hunt the fucking idiot who hurt her and dig his grave herself.

“No, I am. Trust me.” 

Kara offers to check on her vitals herself, knowing how Lena hates to be woken up in the middle of the night. And besides, although she’d really love to see Lena snap at someone other than her for a change, Kara’s happy to do it herself. 

“You used to wake me up in the middle of the night to make love to me.”

Kara snorts when she scribbles the blood pressure reading down on the chart in her hands. Her handwriting isn’t much better than that of a doctor’s. 

“Is it women in uniforms or hospital rooms that are doing it for you?” Kara jokes.

Lena’s brow creases like she didn't hear her. She’s staring at Kara, but she’s looking right through her.

“I was talking to Sam about it, when—“

When a drunken piece of shit swerved into her lane and speared her car, head-on. 

“That’s not important right now.” 

“It is me to me.” 

“Lena, your broken ribs punctured your lung, caused pneumothorax—”

“Your medical jargon is not making me less horny.” 

“How much morphine are they giving you?”

Lena giggles. Actually, giggles. Kara hasn’t heard that sound in over a decade. 

“You tell me.” 

“Sleep. I’ll be right here in the morning.” 

Lena’s already asleep by the time it takes Kara to settle back down next to her. She quickly succumbs to her fatigue as well, only to be woken up an hour later by the same nurse.

“There’s a cop here to see you.”

Kara sighs and lays down a kiss on Lena’s forehead before she moves off the bed, rolling her neck and shoulders.

 _Fuck these shitty beds_. She can’t imagine how uncomfortable Lena is with three broken ribs, forced to sleep on the stiff and thin mattress. 

“She’s very insistent.” 

It could be Maggie, coming to tell her that the drunk driver they arrested wants to press charges for his broken nose after he fucking nearly killed his wife. 

Or it could be Alex. 

It’s Alex _and_ Sam.

Kara lets out a nervous breath when Alex throws her arms around her. She lets herself be vulnerable for a moment, while Lena’s distracted by Sam. 

She wipes her tears with her thumb when Alex pulls back, hands on Kara’s shoulders. She’s in uniform, working nights too. And yes, they do synchronize their schedules or they’d never see each other. 

“Maggie told me what happened.”

“Alex…” Kara breathes out, rubbing the back of her neck. Not from embarrassment, but to try and relieve some of the tension in the stiff muscles. 

“She said that a broken nose isn’t uncommon in these types of collisions.”

Bless her soul. Maggie's the one who introduced Lena to her all these years ago. She’ll always have a special place in her heart, Kara's has missed her since she and Alex broke up.

“You’re really pretty.”

Kara hears Lena slur. When she turns around, Sam’s face is being held hostage in Lena’s hands. It’s a beautiful moment between her wife and her best friend. Kara almost feels like she’s intruding.

“Looks like you let Freddy Kruger have a go at your face.” 

“Don’t make me laugh. Everything hurts.” Lena groans. 

Kara tells Alex she needs some air, assures her she’s fine, and exits the room. She trusts them, she wouldn’t have left Lena alone with anyone else. 

She finds an empty bench outside where the ambulances park, where the ER doctors meet them. She leans forward, arms clasped behind her head. And, she breaks down, alone, in the cold winter night. 

It could have been worse, she tells herself. It doesn’t offer her much peace of mind, though. 

A crushing weight settles on her chest and on her shoulders, like something menacing is sinking its claws in her back, ripping at her flesh. Normally, this is when Kara would have a drink. To escape the pain, to drown out the voices in her head yelling at her. Telling her that she’s nothing. That no one wants her. That her birth parents were right to give her away. 

The funny thing about demons, though, is that they can swim.

Her fingers dig into the nape of her neck as she leans down further between her parted legs. She takes deep, calming breaths just like the therapist had shown her. She’s not sure it helps. 

“Well, look who it is.”

She could recognize that voice anywhere. Not because she misses it, but because it’s been plaguing her nightmares for months. 

It’s Lucy, exiting the ER through the double sliding doors. 

Of course. Tonight, of all nights, she had to see her. She had to cross paths with the woman she never wanted to see again while her wife is laying in a hospital bed, badly injured.

There never has been a truer saying than ‘when it rains, it pours’.

“What do you want?” Kara’s voice is far from friendly. 

“Our friends don’t talk to me anymore. They act like you’re the only one who suffered. Like I’m the only one that did something horrible.”

“You don’t know what I’ve lost.”

“James, Winn, they still talk to you. I hear Lena’s back home,” Lucy scoffs, coming closer. “What exactly _did_ you lose?”

Kara knows exactly where she ‘heard’ that Lena moved back in with her. It’s all that everyone gossips about. Her life. Her marriage. Kara almost quit her job about a dozen times this year. 

But, she’s done making excuses for her actions, for her own idiotic choices. 

“What we did was despicable and the only person who suffered, the only victim in this story is Lena.” 

She leaves before Lucy has a chance to answer. Kara’s not interested in hearing what other bullshit is waiting to spill out of Lucy’s mouth. 

Lena’s discharged by the doctor the next day, which is what Kara expected. They say it’ll take 6 to 8 weeks to recover, and again, Kara could have made that assessment herself.

They prescribe her painkillers, and anti-inflammatory medication, then send them on their merry way. James picks them up, it takes a bit of reassurance to get Lena to step inside the car. Kara holds her hand during the entire drive back home. 

Kara sits down on the edge of the bed next to Lena’s legs, the bed that they now sleep in together every night. She’ll have to go to work later today, but she can’t bear the thought of leaving her alone in this condition.

Sure, Lena is suffering physically, but she knows better than anyone that the psychological trauma associated with car accidents is very real and very treacherous. Sometimes there’s a delay, the human mind can only process so much pain all at once. Most often, they’ll develop PTSD once they’ve fully healed physically or during the healing process.

Kara’s certain Lena can easily guess what she’s thinking by the worry lines etched on her creased forehead. 

She reads her mind, then, as she’s always done. 

“Can you—will you stay with me? Just for a few days,” Lena adds quickly. “Until I can get up on my own.”

Kara lays her hand down on Lena’s leg, the part of her she knows isn’t littered and covered in bruises and cuts. 

“I’ll stay as long as you need me to.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe one day I'll find a name for their therapist.
> 
> My tumblr: sups-in-my-corp.tumblr.com


	5. Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured y'all deserved a little fluff for all the shit I put you through for 4 chapters straight.

After the accident, Lena lets Kara take charge of mostly everything. She lets her deal with the insurance company, and she’s happy to hear that they evaluated her Toyota at sixteen grand. That amount is eventually transferred into the joint account she shares with her wife. 

The loan is paid in full, and there’s enough left that Lena could buy an older car, cash, and not have to worry about monthly payments. But, she’s not sure if she’d feel safe. 

Safety. Security. 

It’s something she’s been struggling with while recovering from the accident. It should be overwhelming for Lena to have Kara help her with nearly _everything_ —she still has days where she'd rather not be around her—but her strong and unyielding presence is comforting. 

She’s Lena’s shield. Her line of defense. 

The physical pain is the least of her worries, Kara helps her wash her hair and her body, lifts her out of bed, guides her down the stairs with a hand around her waist.

The emotional toll is worse. 

One evening, Lena’s sitting on the couch with Slinky laying gently purring behind her head while she watches the miraculous scene unfolding in front of her eyes: her wife _actually_ cooking. 

There’s swearing involved, of course. Drawers opening and then slamming shut. Utensils clattering. Their kitchen is a slaughterhouse, with a blonde ogre for a cook, and Lena fears that they’ll have to remodel once she fully recovers from her injuries.

And then, she hears Kara shout: “Fuck me. We’re out of bacon.”

A tragedy. One cannot make breakfast for dinner without bacon. 

“I can’t help you with the first part, honey, but I could run to the store and get the bacon.”

“Are you sure you’re okay to go by yourself?”

“I’m not invalid. Besides, I can’t sit here and watch you destroy my kitchen all night.”

She ignores Kara’s glare while she slowly lifts herself from the couch and makes her way to the front entrance.

It’s a simple plan, really. And, executed well, would take less than ten minutes. It should, yet it becomes a bit more complex when Lena pulls herself up behind the wheel of Kara’s truck, only slightly grimacing, thankful that Kara didn’t see that. 

She’s fine. It practically doesn’t hurt anymore.

It hurts like a bitch, still. 

Three broken ribs, the rest bruised. Her doctor told her that after a few weeks she’d regain a lot of mobility.

What a crock of shit that was.

Lena’s out of painkillers and has to use the analgesic from the pharmacy upon waking up, seeing as every morning her body greets her with excruciating pain that radiates all around her back and down her thighs. Kara massages her, but it doesn’t do anything apart from making her horny without any payoff. 

Who the hell decided they should stop having sex and why the fuck did she ever agree to that idiotic idea? Now that she’s actually ready to dive back into the intimate side of their relationship—she thinks—she can’t even lift her arms past her waist. 

She turns the key in the ignition and suddenly she can’t move and she can’t breathe. She doesn’t know how long it takes for Kara to come find her, but she does, and she holds her until the crying stops. Until her body ceases shaking. 

It’s warm and safe in Kara’s arms. It’s the only place she wants to be. It’s where she wants to hide from the world and from her trauma. But Kara doesn’t let her retreat into herself, into that dark recess she knows is there. Kara pulls her forward to the light instead, with a guiding hand and a brilliant smile on her handsome face. 

Lena really wanted to get that damn bacon, though. 

They order a pizza instead.

But the ‘bacon incident’ as Lena calls it, is behind her now. She can move her hands perpendicular with her shoulders without throwing out every single curse known to man. 

Kara suggests that they should start shopping for a new car. Lena hasn’t started working yet, but she will soon, and since Kara’s shifts differ from one week to the next, she couldn’t ask her wife to be her personal chauffeur.

The salesman that approaches her is tall, well-groomed in his pressed suit made from cheap materials, Lena notices. His hair slicked back and he immediately greets her with a toothy smile. He then asks her what she’s looking for, Lena responds that she isn’t sure.

She looks around for Kara briefly but doesn’t immediately spot her in the lot filled to the brim with vehicles the dealership would love for her to get indebted with. 

Then, he opens his mouth and she immediately wants to punch it closed.

“I see you in something sleek...and _sexy_.”

Lena’s jaw twitches as she stops herself from laughing drily at his attempt to appear alluring. Kara had better game than that...when they were in high school. 

“Sleek and sexy,” Lena repeats with a smile so fake it’s almost impossible that he doesn’t see right through it. “Like my shoes, just before I shove one up your—”

“Hi!” Kara cuts in, her hand resting in the dip of Lena’s back as she leans forward to take his hand in hers. From the look on his face, Lena guesses she’s adding more strength to the shake than is strictly necessary. He has it coming, though.

Lena bites her lip to keep herself from smiling. 

“My wife needs a new car, I’m just tagging along.”

“I see.” 

He looks uncomfortable like Kara had just violently robbed him of what little confidence he had that had spurred him on to flirt with Lena. 

Lena stares at her while she’s staring him down. 

It’s a beautiful sight. 

She observes him the salesman as he nervously pulls at the cuffs of his jacket, then clasp his hands together in front of him. “What type of vehicle are you looking for? Sedan? Utility?”

“Something big and _strong_.” The words come out sultry, as they’re meant to be.

She’s not talking about him. 

Even he knows that. 

She shifts closer to Kara, then. Her eyebrow is arched impeccably, as always, alongside with her trademark smirk. 

“Like a truck.”

They both look surprised. 

Her wife's confusion comes from the fact that Lena’s always complaining about these very attributes she just listed as being something that’s inherently negative, and everything that she hates about the Ford which Kara has cherished for years.

The car salesman is most likely surprised that Lena doesn't fit what he expected her to be like from her appearance alone. Prim, gullible, and an airhead perhaps. Someone he could easily seduce. 

She’s the exact opposite of that.

In the courtroom, Lena dresses to make a statement, to command power. Three-piece suits. Pencil skirts with a blouse tucked inside. Her hair gathered in a tight bun or a high ponytail. 

But out here, in everyday life where she doesn’t have to make any sort of statement, she’s adopted Kara’s relaxed and simple style. T-shirts, too-big sweaters, tight jeans, which are more for Kara’s benefit, and comfortable sneakers. Her hair is usually loose around her shoulders like it is now. 

“I think we’ll be looking around on our own. Thank you.” 

They leave him standing there, wondering what the hell just happened and why his mediocre charming tactics, fake smile, and the suit he probably rented, didn’t work on Lena.

“Nice save,” Lena says, threading her fingers with Kara’s. 

“I would have loved to see you grill him, trust me.”

Lena believes her. 

“But I can’t buy a new car if I scare all the salesmen away. I know.”

“You’re not _that_ scary if I’m still here.”

They stop next to a truck that looks to have a factory-installed lift-kit. She can already picture Kara having to bring a chair out so Lena could even reach the driver’s seat. 

Kara’s good mood is infectious. Lena matches her grin and takes a step closer. She lifts her sunglasses, pushing them up on top of her head. “You only say that because you think it’s hot when I’m yelling at someone other than you, which granted _is_ odd, but I’ve learned to accept you as you are.”

She lays her hand flat against Kara’s chest as if to pity her. She does so jokingly. 

“Yeah, and what’s that?”

Kara steps forward and leans in real close. Lena lets her. It’s weirdly intimate, Lena muses silently, standing between two trucks that tower over the both of them. 

“A fucking weirdo,” Lena whispers, their lips brushing. That’s what she renamed Kara’s contact name to, in her phone. ‘Cheating Asshole’ just didn’t seem right anymore. 

She pushes herself up then, just as Kara cants her head down, capturing her lips in a sweet kiss that lasts a few seconds. They linger in each other’s space after, neither of them in any hurry to move away. 

“I’ll make sure to mention it to our therapist.”

“Please do. I’d love to see her face when you tell her: ‘so, huh, it turns me on when my wife yells at people, and you know, pushes them around and stuff’.”

“Why are you making my voice sound so deep?”

“Because it is?” She doesn’t let Kara retort, her lips are back on hers before she has the time to. 

Lena settles on a Jeep Wrangler with a manual transmission. Kara’s always going on and on about how they offer the driver more control of the vehicle, and that’s exactly what Lena’s looking for. Being higher off the grounds helps too.

She’s never had a manual car, but she learned years ago by driving Kara’s truck when the blonde would leave fat parties after big games, entirely too drunk to do so. And that piece of junk has one with the stiffest clutch pedal known to man, the second gear is non-existent, and all the other ones grind noisily when shifting. 

Lena’s new Jeep feels familiar in that regard, as it’s very much as a truck’s transmission, though everything from the gear shifter to the clutch pedal makes driving the large vehicle a smooth and enjoyable experience.

The salesman did say something about a dual friction clutch when they were signing papers, but it was hard to listen to him when the smell of his cologne was louder than his voice. 

They’re in heavy traffic now, stopped at a red light. Lena feels fine, in control, and she’s enjoying the peaceful ride with Kara singing along to whatever song is playing on the radio until a car skids to a stop next to them.

Their tires screeching triggers rapid flashes of images and sounds from the accident that overwhelm her senses. The glass shattering. The sound the truck made when it impacted her car. The pain that exploded and radiated all throughout her chest when her ribs broke.

Frantically, she snaps her seatbelt from the buckle after shifting the car in neutral. The engine stalls as soon as her foot is off the break while she moves over the center console and into the back of the Jeep. 

“Babe, what are you—”

“Fucking drive, Kara, just fucking drive!”

“Okay. Okay. I got it, don’t worry.”

Lena lets out a shuddering breath when her head falls back against the backseat’s headrest. Her eyes are closed shut but she can hear Kara shuffling into the driver’s seat and clipping the belt on. 

Someone behind them beeps the second the light turns green and they aren’t immediately moving at the speed of light. 

Both of them roll down their windows, giving the impatient driver two well-deserved middle fingers. Lena laughs at how ridiculous it is that she and Kara are still so incredibly in sync, even after the rough year they’ve had. 

Kara’s deep laugh is still her favorite sound, despite it all. 

So, when Kara asks her to move up to the front on the next red light, she does. Her hand finds its way on top of Kara’s over the gear shifter, and it stays there until they pull up in their driveway.

They’re walking up to their front porch in silence, Lena figures her wife notices the change in her demeanor. 

“You just need to give it time. It’ll get better.” 

“Stop saying that! Stop saying that everything will get better. My life has been a complete shit show since _you_ cheated on me!” 

She punctuates her words by pushing at Kara’s chest roughly. She wants to get better, she does, but she’s tired of hearing the same line from everyone with nothing to show for it. 

She can’t fast forward her healing process. 

She can’t pretend it never happened.

“Lena, come on…”

Kara’s right to feel hurt, it’s not her fault that Lena suffered life-threatening injuries from a car crash she couldn’t have avoided even if she wanted to. But, the ‘time heals all wounds’ mantra is starting to get old, and fucking annoying. 

She still has questions, and they plague her, taking her thoughts hostage. Even if Kara did explain why she had cheated, and Lena recognized that her answer was sincere, she wants a better one. 

She wishes it were as simple as asking. 

Lena’s working on believing it won’t ever happen again, but for now, she needs to be left alone to deal with everything that comes with those ugly emotions. 

“Get that fucking Jeep out of my driveway.” 

Lena enters the house alone. She slumps back against the door and listens to Kara driving away. 

She’s sitting outside now, a closed book on her lap, thinking, agonizing. She can’t seem to be able to justify the way she reacted. So, after two hours of radio silence on Kara’s end, Lena sends her the text she knows she’s waiting for:

‘Come home?’

Kara’s there in twenty minutes and Lena can’t imagine how many traffic laws she broke to drive home so quickly. She finds that she doesn’t really care when Kara walks down the porch and onto the newly built deck that’s still yet to be varnished, sits down next to her, kissing her temple in that soft way she always does.

“Where did you go?”

She’s not trying to fish for something to be mad about. She just wants to know.

“To see Alex. We went to the arena.”

“She wasn’t with Sam?”

“I think they had a fight, maybe? Looks like she needed to shoot some pucks as badly as I did.”

Lena hides her face in Kara’s neck. It’s warm there, and she can pretend that their life is perfect. Still, she apologizes. 

“I was a bitch.”

Kara shrugs, looking down at her hands. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

Kara seems to accept the apology when she takes her hand and leads her down the deck, into the middle of their yard where they both lay down in the grass, Lena’s glass of wine is forgotten somewhere. The nights are warmer now. Lena still wears one of Kara’s sweaters, though. It’s mostly for comfort. 

They watch the stars in silence, Lena’s not sure when she falls asleep but she distinctly remembers Kara tightening her hold on her and whispering something into her raven hair.

Lena’s pretty sure it’s ‘I love you’, so she mumbles it back, half-asleep, but fully safe.

They wake up hours later, neither know how long it’s been. Lena makes her way to the bedroom while Kara waits for Noah to do his business outside. 

She’s standing in front of the sink in the ensuite, shirt off, Kara’s sweatpants hanging low on her hips. Her thumb traces the bright and dark pink scar where the incision was made, the skin there is ropy but soft. It’s the only one that’s visible on her body, contrasting heavily against her pale skin. 

She spends a long time staring at her reflection, at her body, judging every minute detail. Maybe she’s just nervous about being intimate with Kara again after such a long time. How long has it been? Three months? Four months? She lost count. 

But passion, the kind that they have, never goes away. It’s always there. She feels it when they kiss and when they touch. Although dormant, her desire is unmistakably strong. 

She hopes Kara’s is too. 

She flattens her hand over her stomach, turns her head to the sound of Kara striding into their bedroom, shedding off her excess clothes. Anything that isn’t a tank top and boxer shorts has to go, it’s how she’s always slept. She throws them in the clothes hamper. It only took her nine years. 

Something stirs deep within her as her eyes trace the expanse of tanned skin and the hard lines of the muscles that sculpt Kara’s body. It warms the lower parts of her body. It tingles at the base of her spine and below her waist. 

“Do you still want me?”

Kara frowns then, slowly sauntering up to and resting her shoulder against the ensuite’s door frame. She appears worried, surprised too. 

Her brow draws closer together at Lena’s inquiry. “Where’s this coming from?”

Lena’s oddly timid, and she needs reassurance. She knows Kara’s a shitty liar. She’s confident the answer she’ll get from her wife will be an earnest one. 

“We’ve been sleeping in the same bed for months. You haven’t even tried _once_.” It’s not a reproach really, it’s a mere observation. Lena states a well-known fact. It has to be intentional considering Kara always had the sex drive of a teenage boy.

She looks down then, blond hair flailing into her face and obscuring Lena’s view of her eyes. “I’ve been pushy with a lot of things, Lena. I didn’t want to be—not with this.”

That’s not what she asked. Lena repeats herself.

“Do you still want me?” 

Her answer is immediate. Hopeful. “Yes.”

“Show me.”

Kara reacts instantly, gathers Lena in her arms, and kisses her with intent. It’s rough and passionate, it’s everything Lena needed to feel, and it tells her exactly what Kara’s thinking. More than words can express.

The way Kara’s fingers dig into the soft area behind her thighs just before she lifts her up says ‘I want you’.

The way Kara’s mouth latches to her throat, sucking, licking, nipping teasingly says ‘I can’t wait to taste you’.

The way Kara undresses her, fingers moving frantically, puffing warm breaths against Lena’s neck says ‘I need you’.

Lena comes undone under the warmth and softness of Kara’s mouth and tongue. It may be her first orgasm, but it won’t be the last. Kara doesn’t let up, and she answers Lena’s question very thoroughly. 

Lena can’t say that her wife isn’t goal-oriented. She finds the goal, and scores, numerous times.

They’re in the kitchen later that night. It’s still dark out and Kara opens a window to let the cool air in. They can hear the cricket chirping. 

Lena’s sitting on the counter, scooping ice cream directly from the container. Kara’s standing between her legs, opening her mouth when Lena offers her a spoonful of frozen sugar.

That’s exactly what it is, Lena thinks. She’s not going to be able to fall asleep easily after eating all of that, whereas Kara will most likely start snoring the second her head hits her pillow.

She leans forward, licking the ice cream from the corner of Kara’s mouth. She’s always been a messy eater, in more ways than one. They kiss then, and the frozen treat is soon forgotten when Kara’s tongue slides into her mouth and against hers. 

Their lips are cold, and a shiver runs down Lena’s spine. It’s not because she’s cold, she realizes.

Lena jolts awake the next morning, or rather, afternoon, from the insistent knocking at the front door. 

First, she notices that she’s on the couch. Then, she becomes keenly aware that she’s naked, and sprawled out on top of an equally bare Kara. A small blanket had been thrown over them last night. There’s something laying in the middle of her back too, probably Slinky. 

The knocking at the door continues.

Her wife is still snoring, head placed at an awkward angle, arm folded underneath it. She’s definitely going to be complaining about pain in her neck later today. 

There’s silence for a few seconds. Whoever was at the door most likely gave up. That’s what Lena guesses until the door flies open.

“Don’t come in!” Lena shouts, poking her head up enough to see Sam shielding Ruby’s eyes with her hand.

 _Fuck_. 

She completely forgot they had planned to spend the afternoon with them.

“We’ll go through the back.”

Lena can hear Sam trying her damndest not to laugh, or shout, or do both at the same time.

“Sure.”

Alex says something akin to ‘I hate my life’.

Lena pears down at Kara, who’s still snoring. She deflates then, laughing into Kara’s neck. The blonde mumbles, then shushes Lena, blindly placing her hand over her mouth.

The nerve.

Lena is aware that there are two half-empty glasses of water sitting on the coffee table close by. No, she can’t. 

She couldn’t.

She does.

After two whole seconds of debating whether to do it or not, Lena reaches for one of the glasses and empties it on Kara’s face. Quickly, before Kara regains consciousness, she wraps the blanket around herself and sprints out of the living room and up the stairs.

Slinky jumps to the back of the couch, unbothered. He licks his paws.

Kara shouts at her retreating form.

“You better run, _sweetheart_!”

The term of endearment is nothing but. 

After their hair is untangled, their teeth brushed, they throw clothes over their blissfully aching bodies and finally join their visitors outside. 

Kara stretches with a groan and accepts the coffee offered to her. She pushes it towards Lena, claiming she doesn’t trust that Sam didn’t poison it. Lena takes a sip, grimaces at how sugary it is, but other than that, she deems it’s safe to drink. 

Lena takes a seat next to Kara on the wicker sofa set, across from Sam and Alex. She tucks one leg underneath her, throwing her arm behind Kara’s shoulders on the back of the sofa. 

Ruby’s playing with Noah in the yard. 

Everything seems to be falling back into place. 

Sam arches a brow as she stares at her with a gleam in her brown eyes. Lena knows there are a million questions she wants to ask. She’s glad her best friend settles on only one, though. 

“Long night?” 

Alex makes a sound like she’s in an insurmountable amount of pain. 

“We stayed up watching the stars,” Lena answers truthfully. Half-truth. Whatever, Kara made her see stars all night long, most of which weren’t in the sky, but still. 

Kara looks up, as if on cue, at the grey sky like it’s a nice and sunny day. “It’s beautiful out.”

“It’s cloudy,” Alex answers drily. She appears disgusted. 

Lena chuckles lightly when Kara shrugs and sips her coffee. Or rather, drinks the liquid sugar with a small amount of caffeine in it. She kisses her temple, and Kara shuffles closer.

“Can’t you two like, yell at each other, or something? This is weird.” Sam admits, equal parts sincere and joking. It’s an odd combination.

Kara laughs, stares Sam down with a grin. “You really are just like Slinky: small but treacherous.”

“Why, Miss Danvers, I’m honored.”

“That’s Luthor-Danvers to you.”

Lena and Sam are left alone when Ruby convinces the Danvers sisters to play catch with her. 

“You look better,” Sam observes, sitting cross-legged and facing Lena.

Lena mimics her friend’s position. “I am.”

She’s better. _They’re_ better.

“Does that mean I have to stop sending her death threats by text?”

Lena’s shock lasts only for a few seconds. She dissolves into laughter when she realizes Sam’s texts are the reason she often catches Kara reading her messages, rolling her eyes, and then turning her phone face down with a scoff.

She smirks. “I can’t control what you do.”

Maybe Lena likes a little chaos too. She knows Sam does.

“How are things though, really?”

“Better. She changed a lot.” They both did. Sometimes change forces couples apart, but in their case, it brought them closer together. Thankfully. Lena’s had her fill of drama, enough for a lifetime. 

“And you’re okay with not divorcing her?”

Right. The divorce papers. They’re still on the table. But, what Sam is really asking is if it’ll be worth it, in the end. If their marriage is worth saving.

“It’s hard to understand, believe me, I know.” Lena pauses. She casts her eyes towards Kara. She looks happy, truly. Lena decides that she is too. “If it was you, I’d tell you to divorce and move the hell on. It’s not that simple.” 

“Monogamy is _not_ that complicated of a concept to grasp, babe.”

She’s right of course. But, what happened was not premeditated. Kara didn’t plan it. She didn’t fall in love with Lucy and sneak behind Lena’s back for months, or years, even.

It doesn’t hurt any less. It isn’t any less loathsome. It just makes the situation a little easier to thread through. 

“If I give up on her, I give up on myself too.” Lena always believed Kara was her only chance at happiness. She still does.

“As long as it’s your choice.”

“It is.”

She’s healed from the trauma of the accident, both physical and emotional. They would often race—if you can even call it that—their trucks into the driveway, wide enough for two cars, when Kara comes home from work and Lena just so happens to also be driving back from the office at the same time.

A complete coincidence, of course.

Lena wins, most of the time. Kara assures her that her truck is perfectly fine and that’s not the reason she’s losing. Lena rolls her eyes every time her wife refers to the rundown vehicle as a ‘she’.

She runs just fine.

She hasn’t let me down yet.

She’s just a little rusty. 

_She_ finally breaks down when Kara’s half into the driveway while Lena wins yet another race.

Lena laughs when she jumps down from the Jeep, doubles over, hand on her knee, the other one on her stomach. Her laughter turns almost hysterical when Kara attempts to get out and the door handle breaks for the fifth time this year.

Kara yells and Lena can’t breathe, especially when her dramatic wife kneels in front of her truck and strokes the headlights while talking to it as if it can hear her. 

“I’ve given you the best years of my life...why would you do this to me?”

Kara stands up when it doesn’t answer her, angrily kicking the tires, turning around and kicking the bumper too, which falls lopsided, the left side hanging onto hope and prayers alone.

She tries to speak between hiccups, attempts to communicate that she needs Kara to stop or she’s going to pee, right here, right now—thirties are a real bitch—but she can’t. She squeaks out another laugh instead.

“I almost pissed myself.” Lena’s still laughing when she walks inside the house. Kara’s standing by the window, peering through the glass at her truck like there should be sad music playing in the background or something.

Lena’s only a little tempted to pull out her phone and open Spotify. 

“I’m glad you find my pain amusing, but I’m going through something here and I would appreciate some support from my wife.”

“Poor baby,” Lena mocks her openly and without remorse. She wraps her arms around Kara’s waist from behind. “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me.” 

“Can I use your Jeep to push her in?”

“Absolutely not.” 

“Fine. I’ll call her a tow truck.”

“Tell them to take _her_ straight to the dump.” She can’t hold in her laughter.

“How could you be so cruel?”

Kara turns around in Lena’s arms to stare at her, mouth wide open like she had just insulted her firstborn child.

They chase each other around the house. Noah barks and runs after them. They end up sprawled on the kitchen floor, all three of them breathing heavily. Slinky is peering down at them, both figuratively and literally, from his perch on the dining table.

They kiss. Once, then twice, then three times. Lena looks down into the soulful blue eyes that have captivated her from the moment they met. Back when they were naive, unaware of all the things the future would hold for them; both good and bad.

The love, the adventures, the pain, the betrayal.

Lena wants to say it, that she forgives her, but she doesn’t want to do it just because they’re in a good place today. This week. This month. She wants to truly mean it, and not just blurt it out because, at that moment, she’s the happiest she’s ever been. 

Lena tells her she loves her instead. That’s the one thing she’s sure of. 

Their therapist notices. 

“You two seem happy. Relaxed.” She smiles at them like a proud mother. 

Kara answers for them both: “Yeah.”

“Did you reintroduce sex in your relationship?”

“We did.” Lena takes over, her wife is entirely too distracted by staring at Lena, probably thinking of all the numerous ways they did in fact reintroduce intimacy in their marriage. On the couch, on the bathroom floor, in the shower, outside on the porch, in Lena’s Jeep. Lena fears the strap-on harness is about to fall apart. 

“And?”

Lena gives a simple nod. “I feel like we’re on the right track.”

“Like how we used to be,” Kara chimes in, finally turning her attention forward.

“How many times?”

They look at each other and shrug when they turn to the therapist. 

“Twice, maybe three times.”

“A week?”

“A day.”

Lena can hear Kara’s grin in her answer. 

Their therapist’s eyebrows get lost under her bangs. She looks mildly uncomfortable like she’s impressed but also jealous. Maybe she’ll say something along the lines of ‘clearly I’m on the wrong team’, it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve heard that particular line. 

She readjusts the glasses on her face instead, and says: “It’s going rather well, then?”

“I would say so,” Kara answers quickly.

“Well, there’s the time you—”

“—It was my last night shift and I was exhausted.”

Lena bites back her laugh, turning to the therapist. “She fell asleep.”

“And do you...resent her for it?”

“No. I just love giving her shit about it.”

“Correction, she enjoys _torturing_ me about it.”

They share a laugh. Kara winks at her, kissing the back of her hand.

Lena's lips curls into a brilliant and genuine smile, the dimples she knows Kara loves so much make an appearance.

“Forgiveness?”

The subject changes so rapidly that Lena doesn’t have time to adjust. She does, eventually, after a few minutes of complete silence. 

“Getting there. I wanted to, last week.” Lena glances at her wife, who gives her a small and apprehensive smile. “When your truck broke down.”

“ _She_ , Lena. When _she_ died.” She doesn’t miss an opportunity to make a joke and she’s not sure if to settle her own nerves down or Lena’s.

She rolls her eyes but continues. “I was happy. We had fun. It was comfortable.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I felt it then. I didn’t want to say it and not mean it.”

“Happiness is not something you should be scared of, Lena, it’s a testament to the progress you’ve made—that you’ve both made. It seems to me like you may already have, but there’s something holding you back from believing it. What do you think it is?”

“I want to hear Lucy’s side of the story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kara's POV next. 
> 
> (be careful what you wish for)
> 
> sups-in-my-corp.tumblr.com


	6. Spring Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: brief mentions of thoughts of self-harm

The accident had forced Kara to push down her emotions in that familiar place, the one overflowing with demons and dark things always trying to claw their way out and make Kara’s life, for lack of a better term, a living hell. 

Her gate is sturdy—the one keeping all those nasty emotions locked up—but she doesn’t know where the key is, or if she ever had one in the first place. If such a key exists, Kara wouldn’t even know where to start looking.

But, Lena needs her. Her wife needs her. So, instead of agonizing over the loss she could have very well suffered, trying her best to ignore her overactive mind conjuring up images of Lena’s casket, of standing there at her funeral in a dark suit, of crying curled up next to an empty bottle of Jack, she pours all of her energy into taking care of her.

It helps. Being able to _see_ , to _touch_ , to _hear_ her. It grounds her in reality. The reality that Lena isn’t dead, that she’s very much alive. 

Sometimes, when she wakes up with the remnants of a nightmare so dark she wishes she could deny her body rest and stay awake, Kara will carefully pull Lena against her, taking a calming breath once she’s convinced herself that Lena is there, with her, that her dream was just that. A dream. 

The familiar scent of Lena’s silky raven hair always reminds Kara of warm summer mornings, like wildflowers blooming, the air humid but the wind cool. She’ll repeat to herself that this is real, that she’s not really gone, that Lena will _never_ leave.

But, she almost did. And the reality of that sinks into Kara’s mind every day, twisting her thoughts, anxiety forming in a vicious web of newly-formed neurological pathways. On some days, when she’s lucky, she’ll forget about it—a distant memory at the back of her mind—but most days, that fear is active enough to offer no respite and certainly no peace of mind. 

She falls back asleep eventually. 

They’re both standing in the shower, Lena’s bracing herself against Kara with her hands gripping her hips, large hands are massaging shampoo into silky raven hair. Kara had covered the stitched incision with tape and plastic wrap before pulling Lena in the shower along with her.

She’s a proud woman, not as egotistical as Kara perhaps, but proud nonetheless. She doesn’t complain or resist her wife’s help like Kara thought she would. She always takes her offered hand, leans on her. She lets herself be vulnerable and lets Kara be her strength, her immovable rock in the midst of a treacherous storm.

She swipes away a dollop of soap making its way down Lena’s relaxed forehead. Her eyes are closed, lips slightly parted; she seems to be enjoying the attention as much as Kara is enjoying giving it to her. 

It’s not the best of circumstances, Kara is well aware, but she can’t deny her body’s reaction to washing her wife’s body. Soap-covered hands dipping in every curve that she could follow without guidance from her eyes. It would be torture if Lena’s skin wasn’t heaven to the touch.

Gently, she tips Lena’s head back, rinsing the soap from dark locks. If only it could wash away everything else. The physical and mental trauma from the accident. The trauma from Kara’s idiotic infidelity. 

It’s not that easy though, but she’s well aware that nothing ever is. 

Kara’s on her knees in front of her now, hands brushing down Lena’s legs all the way to her calves. When she glances up, she catches a glimpse of darkened green eyes through the mist. Lena’s fingers dig into the ropy muscle of her shoulder, her other hand pressing the wet, tiled wall of the shower. Her breasts are perky and inviting. Kara has to tear her hungry gaze away even if it pains her to do so.

She can tell Lena feels it too.

“Does it hurt?” Kara asks softly when she notices Lena’s breath hitch.

“A little.”

“I’m almost done.”

Lena closes her eyes and nods, lightly biting the corner of her lip.

Kara looks down, watching her hands, a small smile breaking out on her face as she realizes that she isn’t the only one struggling with barely held back desire. Maybe Lena’s also remembering all the times that Kara’s been on her knees in front of her just like this, fingers and mouth elsewhere, Lena’s hands wringing into her golden hair.

This ‘no sex’ phase is truly killing her. So, maybe it is, in fact, torture. But for Lena, for her wife, she’ll gladly suffer. 

The morning routine they establish post-accident is as follows:

She wakes up to Lena’s short bursts of angry and annoyed breaths, groaning in pain as she reaches for the painkillers. Kara always places them, along with a glass of water, on top of the bedside table next to Lena’s glasses and the book she’s currently reading. 

She will then assist Lena in the now complicated task of sitting up in bed, making sure there’s a pillow supporting her back when she rests against the headboard.

After that, Kara would throw on a pair of old and worn basketball shorts, pull a crew neck sweater over her head and make her way downstairs to cook breakfast—or something as close to it as she can—while Lena’s painkillers take effect. 

Once that’s done, Kara will help her down the stairs, guide her to the kitchen where they eat together and Kara pretends she doesn’t see Lena feeding pieces of bacon to both Noah and Slinky.

Today, however, Lena calls out to her before she leaves their bedroom.

“Take me with you?”

Kara turns to her, quickly pulling her hair up in a ponytail with the elastic band around her wrist. “Right away, m’lady.” She smiles warmly at Lena when she gives a terse chuckle at the dorky display of chivalry.

Lena only grunts and curses moderately, standing up a little straighter than the day before when Kara pulls her up on her feet. She’s healing well, Kara sees it not just physically. It’s apparent in the way Lena teases her while she cooks. Kara responds by showering her with kisses as ‘punishment’, then Lena teasingly attempts to push her away with the arm she _can_ move. Sort of. She lets out a string of curses after, though. 

Kara’s eyes soften when she does, her gaze falling to her ribs as though she could actually see the pain through the fabric of the red sweater Lena’s wearing, through her skin. She doesn’t have X-ray vision. She reminds herself that no one does and it makes her feel a little bit better about her lack of superpowers. 

While they eat the overcooked eggs that were promptly turned into an omelet to save the sad state they were in, Lena lifts her left arm, her hand falling onto Kara’s cheek as she wipes away ketchup from the corner of her mouth with her thumb. Her rings feel cold against Kara’s skin. She tells herself that’s the reason she shivers at the touch. 

They smile at each other. It’s unbidden. Happy. Kara feels the butterfly returning in her stomach when Lena’s smile morphs into a grin, her dimples appearing as if they’re always there. They are in a way, waiting for a moment of joy to pull Lena’s lips into a smile wide enough to usher them out of their hiding place. 

Kara moves forward, lifts herself up from her seat with the intent of kissing her wife, when Slinky hops on the table and his bushy tail hits her square in the face. 

Lena curses between throaty laughs, Kara’s certain she’s debating whether she should continue to laugh at Kara’s scowl or preserve her healing ribs. She chooses the former.

Kara glares pointed daggers at the cat she could almost believe is wearing a smug expression on his neutral face. 

_Little shit._

“Will you quit feeding him table food?” She grumbles, shielding her plate from his grabby paws. She almost hisses at him. She wants to.

Lena’s eyebrow lifts and Kara’s heart almost stops in her chest. Death by striking beauty. No, death by a well-manicured brow. 

“Do you have any evidence to accuse me of such crimes?”

“Yeah,” Kara inclines her head towards Lena, nodding her chin, “the bacon crumbs on the floor next to your chair.” 

Lena’s face falls, changes from smug to ‘oh shit’ in less time it takes her to blink. Her head snaps down, but there’s nothing. Kara knows that. 

_Gotcha._

“You just proved your own guilt,” Kara speaks around a mouthful, holding back her amusement because death by choking on eggs is a lot less dignified than dying from her wife’s good looks. 

“Impressive,” she drawls, eyebrow arching once more, “you would have made a great lawyer.”

Lena’s guilt is beyond justifying when Slinky drops into her lap and peers up at her with expectant eyes. Kara shakes her head when Lena shrugs like she never did anything wrong in her life.

Kara could almost believe it.

They spend the rest of the morning outside. Kara mows the lawn, Lena reads quietly on the porch. When she looks over at Lena comfortably sitting on the wicker chair, dark-rimmed glasses on her face, devouring the words on the pages before her, Kara wants to let go of the safety shut-off lever, cross the yard, grab her face and crash their lips together in sloppy, open-mouthed kisses. 

So, she does that. And the lawn remains unmowed for a long stretch of time. It’s not her fault that she gets distracted by Lena’s perfectly soft lips. She finishes trimming the grass eventually. 

The next time they visit their therapist, she directs a lot of her inquiries at Lena, about the accident that took place a few weeks ago. Lena walks her through that night, and what she felt. She sends quick little glances in Kara's direction throughout, especially when she explains how having Kara around to help her accomplish usually mundane tasks that her broken ribs make it hard or impossible to do eases her mind. How it makes her feel cared for and safe.

Kara doesn’t swell with pride like she usually would have years ago. She doesn’t beat her chest like a gorilla and scream at everyone that dares touch her wife. Lena’s not fragile, she’s the strongest person Kara’s ever known.

She’s surprised when the therapist directs a question at her specifically regarding the car crash.

“How are you dealing with the aftermath of these events?”

Kara shrugs, she doesn't have to think too much about her answer. “I love helping her. I like being at home with her.”

The therapist gives her a look like she knows Kara’s holding back, that she’s purposely directing attention elsewhere so she wouldn’t have to confront something hiding deeper. The fear that the accident planted deep within her, it’s roots growing around her heart, covering it like ivy, chocking her out.

“Emotionally, the stress of the accident. How has it affected you?”

“I—I’m fine. She’s fine.”

“Yes, but it could have been worse.”

“She’s fine.” She repeats, fingers twisting her ring, eyes glued to her hands.

“She could have died.”

“But she didn’t!” Kara snaps suddenly, eyes wide, mouth curled up in anger.

_She didn’t. I was there. I saved her. She’s fine._

She relaxes back into the couch, sinks into it further as her anger quells and she’s left with the guilty feeling of her outburst. Lena’s hand brushes against her leg, tentative at first. When Kara doesn’t jerk away from the touch, she squeezes her knee.

She doesn’t look up at either of them. She only notices how tightly she’s pressing her teeth together when her jaw starts to hurt, the muscles around that area taut with the uneasy feeling that accompanies her dread.

“It’s okay to be scared, to feel weak and powerless. If you continuously make yourself believe that you aren’t, that you can simply ignore it, it’ll only get worse. It’ll take hold of you, suffocate you. You have the power to fight against it, and if you won’t talk to me, then talk to your wife.” 

Kara could tell her all about fear, and the ways she expertly pushes it down until it isn’t plaguing her every thought. It manifests itself in other ways, though, paralyzes her at times. She used to turn to alcohol and drugs. Now she works around the house, repairs things that have been needing fixing since they moved in. It’s productive, sure, but their therapist wouldn’t think so. It’s a coping mechanism like any other, but without actual coping involved, it’s nothing but a mere avoidance technique camouflaged as something that will help her. 

It doesn’t.

Her therapist’s sigh snaps her out of her thoughts. She removes her glasses, lays them down gently on the chair’s armrest. “Let's talk about loss.”

It’s the last thing Kara wants to revisit. Lena knows all about it, she was there at Jeremiah’s funeral, but she’s never opened up about how it made her feel or the scars it left behind. Lena squeezes her hand as tears sting her eyes. Her defenses almost crumble then, but they don’t until later that night when they’re on the porch, drinking tea and silently peering up at the blanket of stars over their heads.

She can’t breathe, the therapist was right, her demons resurface and somehow she’s too weak to push them down again. They’re vengeful against her, it’s her own doing, created by her own self-hatred. She can’t do it alone. She knows that. 

She clings to Lena that night, desperately. She tells her of all the ways the people she loved the most always leave her, the vulnerability she feels, the problems it creates in every relationship she’s ever had, the reasons why she loves others so fiercely and how the thought of losing her wife is enough to drive her insane and close to the edge of something she thought she would never do. 

“Don’t ever think I can’t handle your pain. Nothing you can say will make me love you any less, Kara.”

_Cast your burdens on me, all those who are weary._

Problem is, Kara doesn’t want to burden anyone with her fucked up past and all the ways it damaged her. But Lena holds her gaze, has that no-nonsense look about her. She relents, her armor crumbles at her feet like it never stood a chance.

Lena doesn’t run away. She stands firm and holds Kara without any intention of letting go.

“Hockey helped. I would focus on training, on the game, and...I didn’t think of all the reasons why I wasn’t enough for my birth parents, why they couldn’t love me. I used to want to end it all, then. I still do, sometimes,” She adds in a soft whisper. She can barely recognize her voice by how small and meek it sounds. 

She knows it’s hard to hear, it’s even harder to say. To admit that in her moments of weakness, she would turn to a place so dark she didn’t know if light could ever shine through. But, Lena’s her sun, and this time she lets her in.

Kara opens up, lays herself bare in a way she’s never done before. Lena tells her that she’s worth being loved and that her birth parents were selfish. Kara wants to believe it. It’s hard to, after so many years of making herself believe the opposite is true. 

But it plants a seed of hope in her heart. Little by little, light starts shining in those dark places once more. That’s when Kara figures out that Lena is the key. She always has been. 

They’re both laying in bed later, covers off. It’s getting warmer, summer approaching with giant steps and giant changes in the weather. Even the large windows open wide, letting the evening air inside the room doesn’t offer them a cooling breeze.

Not enough, anyway. 

She’d give everything to dive in a cold lake or a pool. Maybe she’d come out from under the water a different person. Maybe it would wash away her sorrows, her past too. She likes to think that’s a possibility.

She turns to her side, on the bed, facing Lena, who’s laying on her back—the only position she can fall asleep in comfortably. She has one arm above her head, there’s a slight scowl on her face. Her wife doesn’t support humidity very well either. 

“I’ve been thinking—”

“You haven’t even finished the deck yet, Kara.”

Lena knows there’s another idea, another project brewing inside her head. She doesn’t have to say it aloud, she just _knows_. Kara stopped questioning her wife’s mind-reading powers a long time ago. 

“I’ll do that this week.” It should be warm enough out to finally add that coat of varnish. 

“Do you really want to have to upkeep a pool too?”

“What else is there? The lawn?” Kara scoffs. Two hours and it’s done. Well, unless she becomes distracted by how in love she is with her wife, an attraction she’s powerless against and always has been.

And besides, Lena is the one that maintains the bed of flowers near the garage at the back, and the ones around the house. A pool wouldn’t be too much work for her. She’s certain Ruby would love it.

“Your high maintenance wife.”

Kara’s gaze softens at Lena’s half-serious comment. “You’re not a chore, babe.”

“You’re just saying that because I let you look at my boobs.”

“Nah, it’s ‘cause you let me touch them.”

Lena pushes Kara’s laughing face away, rolling her eyes, exasperated with Kara’s dreadful sense of humor. A common occurrence. 

When their laughter dies down, Kara traces the lines of Lena’s face with solemn eyes. The cuts have healed further, pink and pale now. Still, Kara can’t help but think how she’s as gorgeous as the day they met, if not more. Definitely more. She appears more severe, hardened perhaps, which makes her look even more devastatingly stunning. 

Lena’s always been someone easy to look at and hard to look away from. Kara never failed to notice the attention she would get—still gets—like people are too timid to be in her presence but can’t stay away from her striking beauty.

Kara was never like that, though. Even in high school, something had drawn her to Lena like a moth being led to a flame, powerless. The day Lena transferred to National City High, Kara had spotted her sitting alone at a table in the cafeteria and slipped in the seat in front of her without thinking twice about it. She was aware of the rumors but paid them no mind. Then Alex followed, and the rest of the women’s hockey team that her sister was the captain of. 

They ate in silence. She caught Lena staring at her, stealing furtive little glances. Kara would send her that brilliant grin of hers that had so many people at school swooning over her. She was oblivious to it all. When Lena stared back, that’s all that mattered. Green eyes were like a giant window to a brilliant mind and deep seethed pain, confidence, and strength hiding just beneath the surface.

And the way she’s looking at Kara right now, in their bed after ten years together, is the same way she looked at her then, how she looks at her every time they step in the shower together and Kara spends her time carefully and gently washing her body like she’s more precious than diamonds. 

She is to Kara. Without a doubt. 

And Kara wants nothing more but to reignite the passion in their marriage, to be intimate with her wife, to show her just how much she still loves her. Lena’s body should be familiar to her, in a dull way. The curve of her hips, the planes of her stomach, the length of her neck. It’s not. Every inch of Lena’s body, the expanse of her pale skin, is just as alluring as it always has been.

Their therapist keeps telling them that it’ll be great for their relationship. To _want_ without being able to _take_. Kara thinks it’s bullshit, she can’t think of anything else that brings two people closer together than making love.

They don’t, though, even for a while after Lena’s fully recovered from her physical injuries. Kara lets her have the lead this time, tries not to think about it. She figures once Lena’s ready to dive back into that side of their marriage, she'll welcome her in with open arms. 

She may have acted like a dick in the past, but she’s not a complete jerk. Lena needs time and Kara’s shown over this last year that she’s willing to give her all the time she needs.

It gets a little harder, especially when her possessive nature kicks in. They’re at the dealership, Kara gets sidetracked by a brand new Ford F150 while Lena makes her way towards the sedans. She hears it then, his stupid mouth making stupid sounds as he flirts with _her_ wife. 

She wonders how good he is in a fight. How long it would take him before he taps out. He doesn’t look the type and she easily towers over him. She calculates all of this in seconds when she clasps her hand in his so tightly she’s almost certain his eyeballs are about to pop out of their sockets. 

But, this isn’t an ice rink, and she isn’t just the team’s goon who doesn’t mind roughing up the other team to deter them from playing dirty. 

And Lena, she’s always been headstrong, foul-mouthed, never one to keep her opinion tucked away in her back pocket. She doesn’t need saving, of course, but together they make a formidable team.

Kara grins at his grimace. 

While their mouths are slotted together in an embrace between the two trucks, Kara wants to take her then. Pin Lena against the cherry red Chevy and show her wife just how much she missed touching her, tasting her, having her. 

Still, she doesn’t cross the line Lena drew in the sand. 

Maybe it’s for the better, too. Maybe they’re not ready to take that next step.

That starts to become a glaring truth after the verbal spat they just had driving the new car home. Kara is standing outside, both palms pressed into the hood of the brand new ‘Firecracker Red’ Jeep Wrangler parked in their driveway. She lets her hand down with a heavy sigh. 

Lena said, yelled really, that she wanted the car out of the driveway. She knows that’s not what she meant. She needed Kara to leave her alone and give her space.

She doesn’t linger there for much longer. She hops in the Jeep and drives by Alex’s place after shooting her a quick text:

‘I’m the babe in the Wrangler’

She turns to her sister, who’s walking towards the car with her mouth open in shock. Kara almost offers to help pick up her sister’s jaw off the floor. 

“Get in, loser, we’re going shootin’!” She says, instead. 

She messes with Alex a bit, locking the doors when she’s about to get in, unlocking them, telling her they’re unlocked, then locking them again as soon as she pulls the handle. Kara says that she’s not used to a car this fancy. Alex says, no, shouts, that Kara’s full of shit. 

She is. 

She lets her in. 

“About time you change that rust bucket of yours.”

“First off, how dare you?” Kara’s well aware that her truck’s old, but she loves her. “Second, it’s my wife’s.”

Alex remains silent for a moment, not out of embarrassment for calling her sister’s Ford a piece of crap, but because she’s looking around the back and expecting to see Lena jump out at her like she’s done so many times before.

“I know you’re back there ass-face.”

Kara wishes that was the case, not including the wonderful term of endearment Alex uses for Lena. She’s grown a very large library over the years. 

She looks away from Alex, though she feels the heat of her gaze on her face. 

“What’d you do now?”

Kara lifts her shoulders in a shrug, depressing the clutch with her left sneaker-clad foot and then shifting in first. 

“Nothing.”

It’s the truth. 

The indoor sports complex’s smaller ice rinks do not allow hockey pucks or sticks, as most people come here simply to skate around; this is where most parents come to teach their kids how to ice skate. Kara doesn’t need a mob of angry mothers coming after her when she inevitably, and accidentally, makes the tooth fairy visit little Timmy from the nice suburb neighborhood near hers earlier than expected. Tooth clattering to the floor, blood dripping on the ice. Lena would murder her, hide her body without a second thought.

The main ice where both male and female Junior Major teams play on is not open to the public and is reserved for games or practice. However, it just so happens that the head coach here also used to be both Kara and Alex’s coach in NCU; J’onn J'onzz. He’s more than that, though, he’s their mentor.

He’s picking up bright orange cones when they get there, hefty hockey bags slung over both of the sister’s shoulders. 

“We too early?”

He turns around at the sound of Kara’s voice, a broad smile on his face. “You’re right on time to help me clean up.”

His grin grows wider when they both roll their eyes and drop their bags, hop on the ice with their sneakers, and slide on over to him. 

He used to make the team captain clean up with him after endless drills, Kara’s memory jostles with images of being drenched under her gear, gloves, and helmet off, Lena waiting in the stands for her while she helped the coach much in the same way she and Alex are doing right now. 

Her sister had gone through the same thing when she was team captain.

“How’s Lena? I heard about the accident.” 

“Doing good.” 

She prays that he doesn’t ask why Lena isn’t here. She loves the game as much as Kara does even if she wouldn’t be caught dead holding a hockey stick. 

“I’ll leave you both to it.” He pauses for a moment, the lines on his brow are pretty telling, he’s debating something. Kara doesn’t have to guess for very long. “If you have free time, I could use a few more coaches.”

Kara would love nothing more than to accept his offer. Truth be told, she’d love to play again, but twenty-eight years old is _ancient_ in hockey years. Kara’s stuck in sports limbo, too old to play professionally but too young to be taken seriously as a coach. 

“Take that up my wife, coach.” Kara lifts her hands up as if demanding Lena’s permission would be a perilous affair. She always had a reputation for being a spitfire. J’onn had to talk her down from yelling at referees more times than Kara could count. Still, she misses hearing her wife shouting things like: ‘that was clearly offside you fucking idiot! How much are they paying you to throw the game?’

A woman after her own heart. Clearly it worked. 

“Tell you what: if you still have all your limbs the next time I see you, I’ll consider it.” 

Alex laughs louder than both of them. 

J’onn leaves, Kara has five pucks lined up on the blue line. Her snapshot used to be feared amongst the many goalies she faced. The moment she would wind her arm back, defensive players would intentionally recoil, leaving the goalie to fend off for themselves. 

It was like a speeding bullet the moment it lifted off the ice. They used to call it the Superman slapshot, aptly renamed Supergirl shortly after. The nickname stuck all throughout high school and most of University. It was infinitely better than ‘KD’, Kara thinks. She’ll gladly the ‘cheese macaroni’ jokes to her grave. 

Kara slaps four in the net, the second one hitting the goal post with a distinctive clank. The sound any scorer hates to hear. The sound of defeat. You beat the goalie, but shoot too wide and hit the post instead of scoring. It has to be the worst feeling in the entire world. 

Twenty-one-year-old Kara would think so, married Kara knows that isn’t the case anymore. 

“Damn,” Alex chuckles, picking up the pucks one by one. The blades of her skates cut through the ice as she comes to a stop beside Kara. “If you would have unloaded like that every game we would have won more championships.”

She places them on the blue line while Kara skates away towards the half board of the player’s bench and leans back against it. She readjusts the bright orange beanie on her head, stuffing her hands into the front pocket of her grey sweater and She Alex rush the net, decking around imaginary defenders and shooting a quick wrister past a non-existent goalie. 

“I just don’t get what she wants me to do, Alex.” Her voice caries across the rink, it echoes in the empty stands.

“She doesn’t need you to repair her, she’s not a broken water tap, she just needs time.”

Alex doesn’t look up when she skates back to the blue line, snagging another puck and accelerating towards the net once more.

“I know. I know. It’s just—” She stops, eyes focused on her sister’s movements. “I wish things were different, is all.”

Alex looks up at her then as she lets herself glide behind and around the goal after scoring. There’s no pity in her amber eyes. Kara isn’t looking for any. “You should have thought about that before cheating, kid.”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

It’s the truth. 

“Can you go on defense?”

Kara’s thankful for the distraction for once. She pushes forward with her left skate and lets herself glide the rest of the way there. She stops in front of Alex both ends of the stick resting on her thighs as she leans forward as if readying herself for a faceoff.

“You’re not scoring, Danvers.”

“Sure, Luthor.”

Alex surges forward, pushing the puck along with her with the blade of her stick. Kara skates backward, adopting her usual position. It comes naturally to her like she’s been playing every single day since graduation. It feels good. She hates that she actually considers J’onn’s offer. 

Alex manages to score a few goals, decking past Kara without losing momentum. She blames not being used to her skates anymore. She blames the fact that she hasn’t played for years. Then, finally, she comes to the conclusion that she only has herself to reproach for her failures both on and off the ice. 

“I think I’ll do it,” Alex says while they’re untying their skate’s laces, sitting on the worn wooden bench that’s been there for centuries and will be for centuries more. 

“Huh?” Kara grunts in response, kicking off one of her feet free from a skate. It’s sore, she winces slightly when she moves her ankle around. She doesn’t remember being used to that pain. Maybe she just didn’t feel it all back then. 

“Coaching.” 

She turns her head, watching Alex hunched over and still working on getting the laces undone. “Yeah?”

“Would you come to the games?”

She looks up. Their eyes meet. Kara smiles, it’s warm.

“Sure.”

Lena would love that. She would too. 

Kara receives the text she’s been waiting for while she zips the duffel bag filled with the hockey gear she didn’t use apart for the gloves and skates. It buzzes in the front pocket of her pull-over. She taps the screen once and smiles when she sees the words written on her notification screen:

‘Come home?’

Kara isn’t sure what to expect when she walks through the threshold of her home. It certainly isn’t an apologetic Lena. She definitely didn’t imagine that tonight would be the night they’d make love for the first time in months. One hundred and twenty-three days, to be more exact. She kept count and isn’t embarrassed to admit it. Especially not when Lena climbs into her lap for seconds. 

Lena’s still the most beautiful creature she ever laid her eyes upon. Her opinion is totally not biased and totally not based on the fact that Lena’s currently clinging to Kara, fingers digging in her shoulder, the other hand curled at the nape of her neck, cheeks rosy and voicing her pleasure with a string of absurdities spilling from her mouth, hair loose and wild around her face. 

They reacquaint themselves with each other’s bodies most of the evening, an activity that extends well into the early morning. They take a break though, to eat, Kara’s suggestion. Later that night—morning—when Lena’s laying on her chest, raven-hair sprawled there, her breathing even, Kara lets herself believe that they’ve finally overcome all their demons. 

She’s wrong. Another common occurrence. 

Lena tells their therapist that she wants to talk to Lucy during a session. Lena still has her number on her phone, they used to be friends once. Before everything, before Kara royally fucked everything up. They were roommates in the NCU dorms.

Social media proves they’ve known each other for years, with the vast amount of pictures they’ve taken at hockey games, before and after parties, clear evidence of a solid friendship that’s lasted for years. 

Lena doesn't tell Kara when or how she’s going to meet with her former friend, she claims it’s something she has to pursue on her own. So, Kara lets her. 

One particularly warm afternoon, Kara is kneeled on the deck, giving the wood that coat of varnish it’s been needing for weeks now. The wicker chairs and sofa have been momentarily moved in the grass next to it, much to Lena’s ire. 

“Can’t you move them on the patio?”

“It’s just for a day or two.”

“I’m a day or two, _your_ dog is going to have peed on the legs at least a hundred times.”

It’s Kara’s dog when Lena’s pissed, not theirs. 

“I’ll hose them down.”

Lena looked like she was about to say something then, but she clamped her mouth shut, growled in annoyance at her wife, and disappeared the house. 

That was yesterday afternoon. 

Today, while applying the second coat, she hears Lena before she sees her, engrossed in the rhythmic stroke of the paintbrush against the pale wood now stained with a dark oak varnish. 

“You promised.”

“What?” Kara deposits the brush on top of the open metal can, wiping her hands with an already stained cloth as she stands up. 

Lena’s holding her hand up, pointing to the jewel-encrusted gold rings there. “When you put this ring on my finger, you promised me you’d never hurt me—you fucking promised you asshole!”

She lets Lena push her once and then a second time, arms hanging limply by her sides. She remembers proposing to Lena I’m the ice rink, in front of the entire team after practice, it was the best day of her life. 

Kara knows what’s going on, the reason for Lena’s sour mood. There’s sadness and hurt in her eyes, something that Kara’s been seeing less and less of these days. 

She met with Lucy. 

She should have figured it out when Lena vaguely explained that she was going for ‘lunch with a friend’, giving her a kiss on the cheek before leaving. Maybe she could have prepared herself a little better. Not that it would have changed much. 

Lena’s second away from retreating back into her shell, but before she does, Kara cuts off her path when she attempts to walk back into the house. 

“Don’t shut me out, Lena. Not now.” 

Okay, that worked. 

Now what?

She takes a deep breath, Lena’s clenched jaw and piercing gaze doing nothing to help her nerves. She swallows thickly. What she says now may determine the fate of her marriage. 

“I know that I’ve done something I can never take back or fix and—and I hurt you. When I saw you in your car the night of the accident, I told myself I’d fight for us no matter the odds because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you. I know you need time, and when you need me to be here, I will be. I can’t ask for your forgiveness, the only thing I can promise you is that I’ll be better. I wish that I could promise you a perfect marriage, but I can’t, we’re two imperfect people. I’ll love you with every ounce of my being if you let me. If you want me too. I want your forever. I want that with you.” 

Silence stretches between them. Lena eventually turns around, her back to Kara. She rubs the back of her neck, sighing.

Kara thinks that perhaps there isn’t a word or phrase in the English language that can mend what she had so selfishly broken. 

“Dinner’s going to be ready in an hour. And don’t even _think_ about stepping inside my house in those dirty pants.” 

Lena calls Noah to her and lets him inside the house before following him in and Kara smiles, it’s small, but there’s hope there. It’s more than a sliver, she knows her wife, knows Lena. No, it’s not forgiveness, but it’s damn close. 

When Kara sits down at the dinner table, without pants, following Lena’s directives very literally, she’s a little unsure if the eyebrow she receives is out of fondness or annoyance. 

Probably both, she decides. 

Halfway through inhaling half of the mountain of shepherd’s pie that Lena knowingly filled her plate with, she realizes just how much she missed her cooking. Kara’s not much of a culinary artist, not like her wife is, but give her a skill saw and she can build anything. 

They spend dinner in relative silence, Kara sensing how tense Lena is. She so badly wants to reach out and make it all better as if she had a magic healing touch. But as that’s not the case, she gives her the space she needs.

She picks up their empty plates, leaning down to press a soft kiss on Lena’s cheek on her way to the sink. 

“That was great, babe.”

“Thank you.”

While she’s washing the dishes, she feels Lena’s arms sneak around her waist, her body molding against her back. She turns the faucet off, hands covered in water and soap resting against the edge of the sink.

“Don’t turn around.”

“Okay.” 

She doesn’t. 

“Your story matches hers. It doesn’t change anything, you did a pretty fucking shitty thing even _if_ you didn’t lie. Some days I’ll hate you for it. And eventually, I’ll bury it in the past where it should be. You’re my wife, and I _chose_ to forgive you. I can’t do the same for her. But if you _ever_ fucking do that to me again. Ever. For _any_ reason, with _anyone_ —you better pray to God I don’t ever find you.”

They don’t make love that night, but when Lena falls asleep on her shoulder while they watch the latest crime-related documentary on Netflix, Kara doesn’t bother moving her to the bedroom. They sleep the entire night on the couch together, Noah and Slinky included. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DON'T KILL ME. I'll show parts of Lena and Lucy's meeting in the next one, promise. More little 'flashbacks' to come.


	7. Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Business as usual. Read as: angst, as usual.

Lena’s hand is in Kara’s lap, fingers laced together. Her wife is currently deep in conversation with James. The moment they started comparing different makes and models of trucks she tuned out. 

Instead, she focuses on the fire crackling in the obsidian-colored metal pit in front of them. The lights Winn decorated his backyard with are providing a brighter glow than the fire’s flames. There are various types of chairs and other flat surfaces that have been converted into seating arrangements and placed around the pit, most seats occupied by their friends. Lena is acquainted with most of them.

She sips her lemonade, non-spiked. She knew the drinks would flow easy tonight considering they’re celebrating Winn and James’ engagement, and she didn’t want her wife to agonize over having to watch everyone drink all evening and not be able to indulge herself. She’s proud of Kara’s six months of sobriety and wouldn’t want to jeopardize it. 

Besides, Lena also cut down her own drinking considerably.

She always knew, even when she ignored it, that Kara’s drinking was a problem, especially in university. Maybe she tried to make herself believe that it was how everyone acted at that age—Lena enjoyed getting a little loose at the parties she attended with Kara—but there were other factors that should have clued her in that the hockey player wasn’t drinking simply to have a good time. To get a little rowdy with her friends. To blow off steam after a stressful rivalry game. 

Kara drank to forget.

One evening she had shown up at Lena’s dorm room, knocking on her door a little too loudly. When Lena opened it, she was met with a goofy grin and Kara looking like keeping her eyes open was the hardest thing she ever attempted to do. She reeked of beer and hard liquor. 

“How did you get here?” 

The party Kara had gone to that night, the one Lena refused to go to in favor of studying, was more than a short walk away from her building. 

“I drove.” 

Lena bites back the curse words she wants to yell. Kara’s head is resting against the doorframe, eyes closed now. With a sigh, she reaches and curls her fingers around Kara’s wrist and pulls her in, closing the door behind them. 

“You came here with your truck.” It isn't a question. It's a statement. One which makes her blood boil.

“Listen, babe—” Kara had trouble standing straight without the support of something more solid than her legs so literally _anything_ else. The wall and Lena’s arm around her waist were keeping her steady.

“I was the least drunk of all of ‘em,” she slurred with an unrecognizable hand gesture. 

“Everything okay?” Lucy asks, standing next to her open bedroom door. 

“My idiot girlfriend drove here wasted.”

“I’m not _that_ wasted, babe, I told you,” she stumbles on absolutely nothing as they walk through the corridor that leads to Lena’s room, cutting her sentence to slur a jovial ‘oopsie’. “I’m the soberest one.” 

“Right.”

“I can make her coffee?” Lucy offers, clearly seeing the displeasure on Lena’s face. 

“She just needs to sleep it off.”

“I get to sleep with you?” She asks with wonder in her voice. “I like when you let me put my—“

Lena clamps her hand on Kara’s mouth, whatever she wanted to say is muffled into her palm, inaudible. Thankfully. 

The memory is a reminder of how impaired Kara’s decision making becomes when she’s under the influence of alcohol. Not an excuse, just a mere observation. It’s the first and only time she drove her car after drinking. 

Maybe the absolute boat-load of shit Lena gave her the next morning was enough of a wake-up call. Lucy had diffused the situation with pancakes and bacon. She starts realizing that maybe Lucy did always have the hots for Kara, something else she chose to ignore for a long time.

Lucy was their friend. She was her friend. She was her roommate. Keyword: was. 

Her meeting with Lucy is far more awkward for her than it is for Lena. She enters the dinner, the bell chiming noisily and making her jump. So, maybe she was nervous too. Her eyes scan the restaurant until her gaze falls on Lucy: she’s sitting in a booth alone, her body clad in a soft-looking summer dress with a floral pattern, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, eyes fixated on something beyond the large window.

She feels bile rise at the back of her throat then. She forces it back down, repeating to herself that this is something she needs to do for herself and for her marriage.

Perhaps it was a little masochistic in nature, though. 

“I’m really glad you texted. I thought it was a joke at first. That you’d have me wait here all day and never show up.”

No, that’s silly, Lucy deserves so much more than to be stood up at a shitty dinner. She cuts her off, the words already threatening to cause a headache, but maybe that’s just because she’s gritting her teeth so damn hard at the sound of Lucy’s voice. 

“I don't want to hear anything out of your mouth that isn’t a question I asked.”

The ground rules she barks out are for her sanity, mostly. She doesn’t need Alex getting called to a bloody murder scene on this beautiful summer afternoon only to find the murderer is her sister’s wife and the victim is her friend. 

“I don’t want to hear any apologies or excuses, nor do I want any details of how you screwed my wife. I want to know if she’s telling the truth. I’m here for her. I’m here to salvage my marriage.” 

Her friendship with Lucy is well beyond repair. The apologetic look in her brown eyes never fades and it makes Lena want to pour the scalding coffee in her lap. She has to talk herself down from doing it at least three times. 

It would have been easier if Lucy was acting smug, Lena knows how to deal with smug after ten years of being with Kara, but she’s on the verge of crying the entire time. And Lena is forced to stare into the eyes of a woman who used to be her friend. A woman who tried to ruin her marriage for a crush she entertained about _her_ wife for years.

She’s beyond furious and she knows Lucy can see it in her eyes. They barely meet hers while she speaks. What she says confirms that Kara’s story’s not just a fabrication. They were both wasted, Lucy initiated it.

Lena’s jostled out of her thoughts when she hears Lucy’s voice. She almost thinks it’s in her head, her memory melding into the real world around her. But, she’s not clinically insane, yet. Lucy _is_ really there.

She’s standing a few feet away from the rest of the guests, congratulating Winn, kissing both of his cheeks, and handing him a wrapped box. It appears she isn’t staying, and though it momentarily floods Lena with relief, it also fills her with some dread.

She hates that she cares so much.

When she stands up, Kara only glances a few seconds in Lena’s direction when her hand slips out of hers, too engrossed in her conversation with James to notice anything else.

When she approaches the pair, Lucy doesn’t look down when she speaks to her this time.

“I was just leaving.”

“I’m not going to stop you from being here. I can tolerate seeing you, but don’t mistake this for anything else.”

She doesn’t have any intention of talking with her, of standing or sitting close to her, and she certainly is not interested in rekindling their friendship. But, Winn and James are her friends too. They reconciled a while ago after Kara had told them they were being complete jackasses and that they shouldn’t punish Lucy for something they both did.

It’s their party, their house, Lucy has a right to be here as much as everyone else. 

Kara doesn’t seem too bothered with Lucy’s presence, though she can tell there’s something gnawing at the back of her mind as she twists and turns her wedding ring nervously. 

Lena leans forward against her chair’s armrest, pulling Kara out of her thoughts by resting her hand on the upper part of Kara’s chest, her thumb stroking the material of her shirt. “If you want to go home, honey, just tell me.”

“I’m fine.” 

Lena levels her with a hard look and a raised eyebrow. 

“It’s hard—harder than I expected,” she admits, her defenses crumbling in an instant. “But you’re here and it’s helping. And I want to stay. It’s important to them.”

Winn was way past excited and dangerously close to hysterical when he had called to invite them a few weeks ago. Lena’s a little surprised her ears aren’t still ringing from his high-pitched screams.

“How are you?" Kara nods her head towards Lucy, who's currently talking with some other medics. "I didn’t know she was coming.”

Lena shakes her head, her eyes locked with blue ones. “I’m not going to ruin a party for one person.” 

They’re silent for a moment, Kara’s looking at her with an unreadable expression. 

“We could check out the renovations James said he made in the bathroom downstairs. I hear the counter he put in is real...sturdy.” 

Ah, so that’s what was churning inside that head of hers.

“Kara,” Lena gasps, feigning shock and moving her hand from Kara’s chest to press it into her own, “are you suggesting we have a quickie inside our friend’s home while everyone’s outside and very distracted?”

She watches as Kara leans forward towards her. Her eyes instantly snap to her wife’s mouth. She licks her suddenly dry lips.

“They won’t notice if we go missing for a bit.” 

Lena can think of two people who will notice and will definitely rib them about it later. But, her mind’s already made. Or rather, her body made the conscious choice for her. Her heart’s already drumming in her chest with anticipation when Kara stands up and extends her hand towards her.

It takes them more time to wipe away Lena’s lipstick from Kara’s neck than it takes for them to come against each other’s fingers. 

Lena tightens her ponytail as she stares at her reflection in the large mirror, then smooths her hands down her skirt. It’s too formal for an evening outside perhaps but chic enough for an engagement party. 

Kara buttons her shirt, pushing it back inside her pants. Lena can tell without looking that Kara’s shirt is crooked. So, she squeezes herself between the counter and Kara’s body, smoothing down the collar first. The hickey she left is almost completely hidden underneath it. She’s only slightly disappointed it isn’t more visible.

“How do I look?”

“Like we just had sex and you got dressed really quickly.”

Kara groans. “Alex is gonna know.”

“And so is Sam.” Lena smooths the wrinkles on Kara’s shirt where her hands were gripping it tightly moments prior. She then tugs the material at Kara’s hip to align the shirt’s buttons with her pants’ button. 

“Worth it, though?” 

When she glances up at Kara, she can’t help but mirror her grin. He hands still, rests on Kara’s hips. She hasn’t felt this relaxed in ages. It’s been years since they’ve snuck away at a party to get lost in each other. 

“Absolutely.” 

They sneak in a few quick kisses as they finish making themselves look somewhat presentable. They almost succeed. 

“Thought you guys left,” Alex says, strutting towards them and pulling a very tipsy-looking Sam behind her. 

She immediately points at Kara’s crotch. 

“Your zipper's undone, you tramp!” Sam nearly yells. Everyone sitting around the fire is much louder than Sam’s half-drunk shout, though.

Lena is a witness to the disaster that is her wife trying to cover up for them. It unfolds right before her eyes and it’s horrible. 

“Oh! Ah, that’s funny. We—I mean, I just came back from the bathroom. Alone.”

It starts with Kara’s voice cracking, then it’s the fake laugh she always does when she’s uncomfortable, and finally, if Sam and Alex aren’t already acutely aware of what's happening, there’s the stutter in her voice as she quickly fumbles with the zipper to close it. 

Lena married an idiot. 

Still, She rolls her eyes affectionately at Kara when her panicked gaze meets hers. She hooks her arm through hers and holds on to her bicep and is then promptly dragged away by an eager Kara who overhears about the potstickers at the buffet table.

Kara feeds her one, between stuffing too many in her mouth, making her cheeks bulge. When Lena tells her to slow down before she chokes, Kara’s muffled reply is:

“I’ll die happy.”

Which, ironically, is the same thing she had told Lena this morning after she apologized for clamping Kara’s head between her thighs during a particularly strong orgasm.

Later that evening when most of the guests start to leave, Kara and Lena are slow dancing along with the smooth riffs of the music playing. Hozier, she thinks. Lena forgets that Lucy’s even there, her entire world revolving around Kara, both figuratively and literally, as she spins Lena around twice before pulling her back into her arms. Their hands are clasped together, one of Kara’s hand is pressed in the middle of her back while Lena’s holding on to her shoulder.

“I love you.” 

The words are whispered against her temple. She closes her eyes, letting herself enjoy the perfect evening they’ve had. The warm summer breeze brushes against the exposed skin of her legs, shoulders, and arms. Kara continues to lead, moving them in time with the song’s slow rhythm. 

Her lips press a gentle kiss to Kara’s neck. “I love you too.” 

They sit around the dwindling fire late into the night, the charred logs broken into glowing red embers offering little warmth. It’s far from a complaint, as it’s well over eighty degrees even with the sun having been gone for hours. 

Sam, Alex, Winn, James, and Lucy are the only ones left.

“This is nice,” Lucy says, staring into the pit, “just like old times.”

Lena chuckles, “except _now_ you’re a homewrecker. And you can't even do that right, Kara's still in my bed every night.”

Sam chokes on her drink.

Alex sips her beer, unphased. 

Winn’s eyes dart between her and Kara, nervously scratching a spot behind his ear.

James just stares at Kara, fiercely concerned.

Kara simply squeezes her hand, it speaks volumes.

“I deserved that.”

Lena wants to tell her exactly what she deserves but she’s in a good mood, everyone else is too, and she doesn’t want to drive home in awkward silence because she made a scene in front of their friends. Again. So, she drops it.

“How much did that pool run you?” Kara asks. 

Everyone breathes again. 

Alex looks unphased by the tension, still.

“Please tell my wife that it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“It’s real easy to maintain.”

When she looks into Kara’s brilliant eyes she knows there’s not another time, another place, another universe, in which she can say no to her. She turns towards James with a slight glower. 

“I hate you both.”

Their relationship seems to stabilize after that. They get back to normal—whatever little normal they had in their busy lives. Their therapist tells them they can start cutting back to one appointment every two weeks. Lena sends her a gift basket as a thank you. 

Maybe it’s her hormones, or maybe her sex drive is out of wack after having been struggling with depression for a year, but Lena has an insatiable appetite. If they’re alone, and Kara makes the simple mistake of looking at her, smiling, or winking, or something equally mundane, she jumps her. Devours her.

It starts the night they come home after Alex’s first game as the assistant coach of National City’s Barracudas. It’s one of the last games of the season before the players are released and freed for a short summer break before they return to training.

They’re in their bedroom, changing.

“Your ass looks great in those jeans.” She tells Kara while she’s standing with her back to her, shedding off her shirt.

“Just my ass?” Her question is punctuated by the toned stomach now on display. Her jeans hang low on her hips, the dip of the muscles disappearing in a tapered V-line beneath the boxer shorts she always wears.

Lena’s driven mad with hunger. She stalks her prey, hooking a single dinger in the waistband of Kara’s jeans and tugging her forward. Their lips are inches apart, brushing together as she speaks.

“I might have to explore that theory further.”

“Yeah?”

Lena pushes one of her hands into Kara’s chest, shoving her backward on the bed. Kara’s eyes darken the way they always do when Lena roughs her up.

“Take off your clothes, Miss Luthor-Danvers. Slowly.”

It’s not a suggestion. It’s a demand. One which Kara happily fulfills.

This goes on for weeks. Lena thinks it’s possible she may have lost her mind. The therapist assures her it’s normal and not uncommon for a heightened sex drive, that it’s the cause of their relationship’s ‘do-over’. Still, she can’t help but think someone is adding a strange chemical substance to the city’s water supply.

Maybe she’s not the one who’s gone mad. Maybe it’s cupid himself.

She’s trying to absolve her own actions. Why? She’s not so sure herself. It’s not like Kara’s complaining. There’s been a distinct lack of complaints, actually.

Lena is preparing dinner one evening, her thoughts ranging from inappropriate to downright filthy all day long. It’s torture. Literal torture. She tells Kara she’s going to run a bath once they’re done eating, but when she descends the stairs and walks into the living room wearing nothing underneath her silk robe, Kara’s already asleep on the couch, in a sitting position, hands crossed over her chest and her head inclined down. 

She’s snoring.

_You have to be fucking kidding me._

It’s cute, though. Slinky is sleeping on the back of the couch behind her head and Noah is curled into her lap and her feet are up on the coffee table. She almost doesn’t want to rouse her from her slumber and take her to bed, but she does, and it’s the worst mistake she’s ever made.

Kara, in her half-asleep daze, wraps herself around Lena’s back, pressing into her, breathing and sighing with contempt into her neck.

It’s fucking torture.

She must sense her discomfort because Kara mumbles something that resembles a sentence. “Mm’too hot?”

Thankfully, Lena deciphers its meaning without too much trouble. She’s asking if it’s too warm to cuddle.

“No, it’s fine. Sleep.” Lena doesn’t. Not for a while. Kara’s already snoring in her ear.

The next morning, Lena wakes up after the excruciating adventure of ignoring the insistent throbbing between her legs last night. She pushes Kara off of her and climbs onto her lap once she’s on her back. When blue eyes open, it’s not in shock.

“Good morning to you too.”

She throws her sleep shirt off. She's not wearing a bra. Blue eyes drop down to her bare chest, as expected. 

“Shut up and fuck me.”

Lena loves how her wife is exceptionally good at following commands. It’s one of her best qualities. 

She’s laying on top of Kara after, eyes closed, listening to Kara’s breathing and the rhythm of their synced heartbeats. Fingers glide up and down her back in random patterns.

“I’m not complaining but—”

“Don’t ruin it.” Lena grunts, nearly falling back asleep. She sounds like Kara. She wants to laugh.

“I have to get ready for work.”

“You ruined it.”

“So do you, miss hotshot lawyer.”

She feels Kara poking her side.

“You keep talking and you keep making it worse.”

Kara snorts a laugh, wraps both of her arms around Lena’s shoulders and hugs her like she never wants to let go. Lena feels the same way. They’re both laughing as Kara rolls them over and assaults Lena with tiny kisses. 

She’s the happiest she’s ever been. But, as her life is a pit of swirling chaos more often than not, she doesn’t expect this to last. Maybe it’s a self-fulling prophecy, but every time dark thoughts and imaginary scenarios appear in her mind, something terrible happens. 

This time is no different. 

She’s sitting at her desk, working on a case that’s sure to make her head explode when Eve’s knuckles rasp at her door. She opens it, poking her blonde head from behind it tentatively. 

“Lena, there’s an urgent call for you on line two.”

“You can tell whoever it is that I’m not interested and they can shove it. Be as specific as you’d like.”

“It’s National City General.”

Her head snaps up. 

“Thank you, Eve.” She swallows, her hand shaking when she picks up the corded phone placed on the left corner of her desk. The voice on the other side is male. It’s a doctor. 

“We have a patient by the name of Kara Luthor-Danvers, you’re listed as her emergency contact. Our files say you’re her spouse.”

“That’s correct. I’m on my way.”

She ignores Eve’s question as she storms past her desk. She doesn’t hear Jack calling out to her from his office. All she hears is blood roaring in her ears.

In retrospect, while Lena’s yelling at everyone that isn’t driving as fast as she wants them to, she really should have asked why Kara’s in the emergency room. If she’s okay. If she’s still alive. 

_Idiot._

She should have paid attention to the news and the building that collapsed. But, as it wasn’t in Kara’s sector, she figured her wife wouldn’t have been dispatched there, and thus, she didn’t spare the catastrophic event a second thought. Not out of coldness, but because she needed to be focused on her work, to prepare a rock-solid defense for her date in court tomorrow.

It’s the furthest thing from her mind now.

She glances at her phone, Kara’s last text mocks her. 

‘Have a great day bb’, with a string of heart emojis. 

She dials Sam’s number before she steps out of the car and murders everyone that’s in her path. Or maybe she’ll run them over. Her Jeep towers over most of the small cars in front of her.

“Babe, I’m at work. Unless you’re having a mental breakdown—”

“Kara’s at the hospital. As a patient,” she specifies. Kara being at the hospital isn’t very uncommon considering her line of work.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“They didn’t tell you?” Sam sounds surprised.

“I didn’t ask.”

“Where are you? I’ll drive you there.”

It would have been the smart thing to do, considering the emotional state of mind she’s in currently. That’s probably what Jack was saying to her before she practically ran out of the office.

“I’m already on my way to NC Gen.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Wait!” She can’t stay alone with her thoughts. Not until she sees Kara. “Talk to me.”

“Remember that time your idiot wife tried to install an above ground pool by herself?”

“Of course I remember, that was last week and she nearly flooded my fucking house. Why she has to listen to her ego all the time is beyond me. She could have asked James, or Alex for help, or even me. I was literally right there, Sam. Of course, she didn’t do that, that would make _way_ too much sense. She thinks she can do everything by her damn self. And James, telling her it’s easy to do, that he did it himself. He’s twice her size. They’re both idiots.”

Lena’s pulling in the hospital’s parking lot by the time she finishes her rant. Sam definitely knows her too well, though this time she uses that knowledge for good. She thanks her before shutting off the car, throwing the gear shifter in neutral, and pulling the handbrake.

“Anytime.”

The second she enters the ER, an intern almost crashes into her. She hears a rushed ‘sorry’ from somewhere down the hall where they disappeared. It’s complete chaos. It smells like antiseptic and dried blood. 

A hand grips her elbow, she turns around expecting to see Kara, but it’s Sam. 

“Did you fly here?” Lena demands with mild surprise. 

“I may have ran a few red lights but I didn’t want to get here and have to explain to the cops why you killed four doctors and why I think you’re innocent.”

She has a good point.

But, they can’t find Kara anywhere. Every bed is filled up, gurneys with patients take up every square inch of space in the emergency room. They have to play dodge the doctor every five seconds.

Lena finally snaps and grabs one by the collar of their white coat. Sam doesn’t even try to calm her own. 

“You,” she growls at him. “One of you called to inform me that my wife’s here, but I can’t find her, so you’re going to help me.”

“What-what was the Doctor’s name?” He asks needlessly, tripping over his words under her heated gaze.

“I don’t fucking know.”

“Your wife’s name then, ma’am?” 

_Ma’am? Do I look like a fucking Ma’am? The nerve._

Sam answers for her, which is convenient, considering Lena was about to tell him she’s not to be referred to as a ma’am until she’s old and grey. 

His eyebrows draw in closer together as he swipes through her digital file on the large tablet in his hand. “She was one of the paramedics on scene, brought in for a deep partial burn on her left hand.” He looks up at her with a smile even though she’s been acting like a complete nutcase.

_It’s just a burn. She’s fine. It’s just a burn._

“She should be here, unless...”

Well, she _was_ calm for like half a second. Sam seems scared for the man’s safety.

“Unless what?”

He pushes his glasses up, there’s a slight tremble in his voice when he speaks. “Unless her condition deteriorated and they found something else.”

“The only thing that’s going to deteriorate is your health if you don’t help me find her immediately.”

“Follow me.”

They find her, hidden behind a curtain while a doctor is bandaging her hand. She's sitting on a chair, there's a beige plastic work table between them. She’s hooked up to an IV to hydrate her. Kara’s eyes snap up to hers instantly. She stands up, much to the doctor’s protest.

“I told them not to bother you at work. It’s nothing.” 

“You are the stupidest loveable asshole that I ever met, Kara Danvers.” Lena likes to intentionally leave out her hyphenated last name when she’s mad at her. Her wife is well aware of that fact.

Despite the fear and anxiety that transformed itself into a seething rage, she lets Kara pull her into a hug. She smells like soot and smoke. When she feels Kara’s shoulders shaking, she thinks she’s crying, but no, this idiot is _laughing_. Actually laughing.

Lena pulls back, tears stinging at the corner of her eyes. Kara’s also wiping tears from her face, but they’re there for a different reason. “What’s so fucking funny? And why were you even there?”

“They wanted all _hands_ on deck.” Kara has the fucking nerve to wiggle her bandaged hand in front of Lena’s face, chuckling almost uncontrollably. They must have given her some pain meds.

“Stop laughing. I fucking hate you.”

Sam and the Doctor share a look, they fail to contain their amusement. Standing up, the small woman gently takes Kara’s hand in hers to finish tying the bandages.

“Is this one yours?” She asks Lena, looking up at her with big, green eyes, much like hers. Her auburn hair is tied in a bun. She’s short, much shorter than Lena.

“Yes, I say with great displeasure in my voice.”

Sam chuckles at the pout now prominently displayed on Kara’s face.

“I'm Dr. Isabelle Davis. My intern is the one who called you earlier.”

“So, what happened exactly?” Sam asks.

“This one managed to pry a piece of metal that was constricting a young girl’s chest. She survived because of your wife’s heroic actions.”

Well shit. She can’t possibly be mad at her now. Lena was really looking forward to yelling her head off about Kara’s lack of self-preservation instinct.

“I hate you a little less.”

This time, Lena laughs with them.

When the girl’s mother finds Kara and hugs her, Lena doesn’t stop her own tears from spilling down her cheeks. She doesn’t know how she’d react if that would have been her child stuck in the wreckage. 

_Wait, what the fuck?_

Lena’s thinking of having children. She wants children. With Kara. 

_Fuck._

She tries to broach the subject all week, which should have been an easy task considering Kara’s wound put a damper on their sex life. If Kara’s pain isn’t a boner killer, her shitty mood certainly is. She refuses to take the morphine pills prescribed by the doctor even though they’re non-refillable, per Lena’s request. 

Lena tells her that she’ll keep the bottle of pills with her at work and only give Kara one before she leaves in the morning and another one in the evening before dinner.

Kara accepts these terms. 

She’s aware that if she doesn’t have control over the medication, then she wouldn’t have to fight over taking too much at once and freaking out when she’s out after a few days.

They both regret it once the prescription is empty and Kara goes through withdrawal symptoms only after two short weeks of taking one twice a day. Opioids are a hell of a thing. But it’s better than suffering through every stage of the pain of third-degree burns.

She finds Kara pacing in the living room one night. It’s two in the morning. Kara’s taking deep breaths and trying to calm herself down. She’s clearly in the middle of a panic attack.

When she takes Kara's hands in hers they’re clammy and cold. Her left one is still bandaged, but she says the pain is nearly gone. Thankfully, she won’t need any skin grafting, but she will definitely have burns scars on her palm.

An idea springs to Lena’s mind.

“Follow me.” She takes Kara’s good hand in hers and leads her through the kitchen and out the back onto the patio.

“What? Where? I don’t feel so hot.” The words spill out of Kara’s words in rapid-fire succession.

Lena turns to her. “Do you trust me?”

It doesn’t take her very long to answer. 

“Yes.”

Moments later they discard their clothes on the newly constructed deck that sits higher than their porch. The above ground pool being higher meant that Kara had to remove a section of the guard rail, build a small staircase, and another platform that comes up flush with the pool’s top rail.

Lena’s sure that Kara only installed the pool there as an excuse to build something else. She’s partially right. It’s nice, though. They still have plenty of space in the yard and the large tree that’s next to it gives them plenty of shade when they’re swimming.

Lena burns like a damn lobster after sitting five minutes under the sun while her wife tans beautifully. life is wholly unfair.

Kara complains there’s a lot of leaves to clean up every morning. 

Lena replies that she should have bought a cover for it and that’s where the discussion ends.

“Do you want kids?” Lena asks, slowly swimming towards Kara who’s leaning over the edge, arms crossed on top of the pool’s top rail. 

“What?” Kara lets out a nervous chuckle. 

Somehow Lena knows the thought already crossed her mind. 

“With me. Would you want to have kids with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“I’d like to adopt.”

Lena’s aware that would be Kara’s answer. She’s perfectly fine with it.

“You’re serious about this? Of having kids with me?” 

Kara’s brow creases slightly. “Kids. Plural?”

Lena laughs, wrapping her arms around Kara’s midsection underneath the water. She rests her chin on Kara’s shoulder after dropping a kiss there. 

“Let’s start with one.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?”

Kara turns her head, looking out at their yard. 

“Yeah. Okay. Let's do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know y'all wanted to see a fistfight maybe, but Lena ain't like that. She's all about pettiness and biting words that cut through your soul and make you rethink your entire existence, you know?


	8. Summer Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was my favorite chapter to write.

It’s times like these where Kara really is grateful for how supportive Lena is. She holds her hand the entire time. Rubs her back. Places reassuring kisses on her shoulder—the part of her Lena can easily reach without having to push herself up on her toes. 

Kara’s finally buying a new car after she reluctantly sold hers as scrap metal. 

Okay, so _new_ is a bit of a stretch. 

“I don’t want all that electronic stuff,” Kara frowns, waves a dismissive hand like an old cranky woman who yells at kids to get off her damn lawn. She’s nearly there. “The older the better.” 

“Translation: as long as she runs fine then I’ll give her a go.” 

She doesn’t see Lena rolling her eyes, she just assumes she did. She’s a little offended by the way Lena mimics her voice, or what she thinks Kara sounds like.

“When do I ever talk like that?” 

Lena stares at her. The silence says everything. 

Kara turns to the salesman, plastering a large smile on her face. “I’ll take the blue one.” 

The blue one being a 1994 Chevy Silverado Z71. She doesn’t have to test drive it to know she’s going to love this thing. She inspects it herself because she doesn’t trust the salesman’s fake smile. It’s not the same douchebag that attempted and failed to flirt with her wife last time they were here. This one has less hair and smells a little worse. She almost misses the smell of cheap cologne. This one just smells like sweat. 

Either way, she signs the papers not too long after. Once the keys are in her hands, Kara opens Lena’s door, bowing down gallantly simply to make her wife laugh. She’s pleased when it works. 

“Let's give her a go,” Kara says, bouncing her eyebrows up and down as she turns the key in the ignition.

The engine roars to life and it’s the most beautiful sound she’s ever heard. Well, the second most beautiful sound she’s ever had the pleasure of hearing.

The exterior is a pale, metallic blue. The bench seat is navy, but Kara has her suspicions that they used to be black. Technically a two-seater, but the bench can easily accommodate a third human, Alex or Sam-sized. James might have a harder time trying to fit the length of his broad shoulders comfortably.

The dashboard is navy as well, a little dusty too. The leather on the steering wheel held up nicely over the years. Kara can’t wait to get home and give this baby a good, deep cleaning. 

“You’re not getting any sex later, you know this right?”

When she throws her arm over the back of the seat, she pretends to be mildly annoyed with Lena for half a second. 

“If you say so, babe.” 

Kara’s certain that her wife is full of shit for two very telling reasons. The first, that Kara, in her natural state, is charming and wholly irresistible. And two, that Lena’s been horny enough for the both of them this past week. Kara will just blow some air on the back of her neck and it’s over, Lena’s already ripping Kara’s short off faster than she can blink. 

They had sex twice today. It’s only two in the afternoon. 

She’s not complaining, of course. Kara could spend an entire day making love to her wife. And she’s getting used to waking up to Lena straddling her. It’s nice.

It’s more than nice. 

It’s perfect.

Still, Kara’s a little bit curious where this insatiable sex drive is coming from. A part of her thinks it’s Lena’s good mood returning and making a permanent residence. 

Kara leans down, captures Lena’s lips in a quick kiss before she peels out of the dealership’s parking lot. Lena’s hand flies to her thigh when she lets the back of the truck drift a little as she steers the car onto the road.

“Give her!” Lena says, unable to contain her laughter.

“Come on. I never say that.”

The hand that was previously on her thigh lifts and rests on her face She pouts when Lena pats her cheek like a child being scolded, or rather, pitied. 

“Oh, honey, you do.” 

The kiss that follows the slight sting of her words makes it better, though.

She was raised in a small town, she can’t help the slang that comes out of her mouth sometimes.

If there’s one thing Kara missed the most when they were separated, this is it right here. Not deep, hungry kisses. The simple ones when Lena’s in a good mood, where she does it almost absently while doing something else. When she’s cooking and Kara brings her the spices she was looking for. When she’s reading and Kara sits down next to her, she’ll lift her eyes from her book, kiss her, and continue reading as if Kara hadn’t interrupted her. 

It’s more than desire, that part’s always the easiest. These little pecks come from love and adoration, and Kara still gets butterflies in her stomach every single time. 

Their therapist enters her office, words tumbling out of her mouth rapidly. “I’m so sorry to keep you both waiting.”

Her apology is sincere. Kara’s grown to like her. As a friend even. It’s not uncommon. This woman has seen the darkest and deepest parts of her, not like Lena has—no one will ever know Kara as her wife does—but there’s an unspoken bond between them. 

Kara mentioned wanting to invite her to the house, telling Lena maybe she could get Alex to open up about all the shit she’s kept inside. Kara only knows because it’s all the same crap she’s stuffed down for years. She wonders how Sam deals with it. 

Lena tells her it’s a bad idea. They leave it at that. 

“We’re only early ‘cause Lena drives like a maniac.”

Kara doesn’t have to turn towards Lena to know she’s currently shooting daggers at the side of her face. 

“Excuse me, _cowboy_ , you should see yourself drive.”

Kara laughs as she leans in to kiss her. 

Their therapist takes a seat in her chair, looking more out of breath than usual. She and Lena are sitting close, cuddled as they do at home—they’ve become familiar with this very couch.

The therapist tries to hide the soft smile gracing her lips, pretending to thumb through pages and pages of ‘notes’ Kara’s pretty sure aren’t written there.

She’s still banking on the fact that their therapist is trying to determine who’s the top between the two. 

She could just ask, though. Kara would answer, smugly. Lena would deny it, surely. 

“I have a question.”

Kara turns to her, again. She seems nervous. No, shy? That’s unlike her. She squeezes Lena’s shoulder lightly, encouragingly. 

“I—it’s idiotic I know. I’ve been very…”

“Passionate?” The therapist supplies helpfully, knowingly, impishly. 

“Don’t get me wrong, my wife and I, we’ve always had a very healthy sexual relationship, but I’ve never felt so…aroused. All the time. She looks at me and it’s like I can’t get her undressed fast enough.”

Kara’s eyebrows rise up high into her hairline. So it wasn’t just her mind making up things. She shifts, not uncomfortable, but then again she never really discussed what she and Lena do in bed to anyone. Not even her sister. 

Kara’s very private when it comes to her intimate relationship with her wife. Always has been, even back in high school when everyone boasted about their accomplishments—most of them fake—she never said a word. Not even when they pried. 

“An increase in sexual drive is very common in these situations. You shouldn’t worry. What I’m seeing is that you’re still afraid to let yourself be happy. This is what it feels like. You see your wife, you want her, and it may seem stronger now, unlike before, but that’s only because it’s been dulled or pushed aside for so long.”

It’s true, they had a rough year. The hardest, really. First, it was the odd case of the ‘I miss you but I still hate you sex’ then the sexual tension from not having sex while reconciling and growing closer again, and finally, the not so curious case of ravenous Lena.

Which, again, Kara is definitely not going to be complaining about any time soon. Especially not after they just finished making love, their bodies are still covered in a very thin layer of sweat—courtesy of their recent strenuous activity _and_ the summer heat and humidity. 

They really need to get an air conditioner for their bedroom.

Kara’s laying there beside Lena, peering down at her on a propped elbow, and she’s staring at her with green eyes that are distinctively marked with love. The kind that woke up the moment they met and only grew stronger over the years. 

Her hand reaches her face, and Kara leans into the touch, momentarily closing her eyes. She never thought they’d be like this again. That they would be lying here, two hearts beating strong and steady, together in tandem, basking in the comfort of each other. 

Lena's thumb grazes her bottom lip, then her chin. She shifts, inclines her head upwards, and kisses her, hand holding Kara’s cheek. She sighs against Lena’s warm mouth. 

Then, her lips find Lena’s neck. Her skin tastes like sweat. It’s far from repulsive. Not when it’s mixed with the sweetness that is Lena. Not when she lets Kara climb on top of her, settle between her legs, arching her back into the contact.

They don’t speak. No words can compare. No words can truly communicate the depth of Kara’s emotions. She wouldn’t dare ruin it. 

Still, she lets her lips do the talking. They make Lena sing a pretty song. One which Kara will never tire of hearing. 

They sit in their backyard the night of James and Winn’s engagement party. It’s late when they get home, but Kara’s not tired. She can tell Lena isn’t either. 

She looks in front of her, imagining a pool. Maybe she’ll build a deck for it. She’ll have to. Lena will only protest mildly, but offer to help anyway. 

Kara wouldn’t drastically change their yard without her wife’s approval. She doesn’t have a death wish. And besides, it’s Lena’s yard too. Her own private island away from prying eyes.

Lena’s half-sitting into her lap, her back pressed into the armrest of the wicker sofa, head on Kara’s shoulder. It can’t be comfortable, Kara thinks. But then she’s pretty sure Lena falls asleep by the slow rise and fall of her chest. She back peddles on that thought.

Her voice cuts through the silence, though. Crickets chirp, a window closes somewhere, a couple of houses down maybe, Kara thinks. 

“I’m happy for them.”

Lena brings up the party. Not because she wants to talk about their friends, but because there’s one particular issue she wants to discuss. Kara knows the twist and turns Lena will often take to broach a particular subject. Still, she indulges her. Doesn’t pry.

“They’ll do alright.” 

They’ve been dating for a few years. Not as long as she and Lena have. James only recently moved to National City. Kara wishes he would have moved here sooner. He’s a good friend. 

“I don’t think I can see her again.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“I don’t want to be _that_ girl.”

Lucy be at their wedding, Kara knows that much. She doesn’t want to have to ask them to choose. She knows Lena won’t.

“I’ll go to the wedding.”

Lena’s reading her mind again. Or maybe they’ve been together for so long that even their thought patterns are in sync. She wants to ask their therapist now, but that won’t be until next week. 

“After that, I don’t think I can see her again.”

“I’ll stay with you.” 

“You’ll miss out on parties. On seeing your friends.”

They’re Lena’s friends too, but her wife comes first.

“I’m not missing out when I’m with you.”

It’s the truth. They have busy lives. Their jobs are demanding. They have very little time with each other during the week, even less when Kara works nights, so she cherishes every second she gets to spend with Lena. 

Lena moves then and lifts her head off her shoulder. She’s looking at her, eyes scanning, searching for something. Maybe she’s still unsure about how earnestly Kara cares about her. How deeply in love she is. 

“When did you become such a smooth talker?”

“I always was.”

Lena hums, noncommittal. She drops her head down on Kara’s shoulder again, plays with the collar of her shirt. 

A thought crosses Kara’s mind, then. She’s not a poet, but Lena deserves the world. She deserves her entire heart. Her entire soul. She’s willing to give it to her.

“Every woman needs someone that’ll ride with her.” That’s the best explanation she can come with. Kara’s that someone. She wants to be. She doesn’t care for the parties she’ll miss. Alex and Sam would most likely excuse themselves early to come here, anyway.

“Or ride _her_ , depending on the time of day.”

Recently, it’s been any time of day. Kara doesn’t say that though, her wife is well aware. 

Kara gasps. It’s fake. It makes Lena laugh louder than she already was. “I can’t believe I married someone with such a twisted mind.”

The back and forth banter that continues leads to them laying down in the grass again, after chasing each other around the yard, Noah running after them. The summer sky is clear, a dark navy color, illuminated by brilliant dots.

“We should get that pool.”

Kara turns her head. Lena’s serious. There’s no grin or smirk on her lips. Her eyes are closed. She’s half-asleep already. 

“Okay.”

Kara draws up plans in her head. The thought that Ruby will love the new addition passes, makes way for another like it. Wanting kids of her own. She briefly wonders how to broach that thought aloud with Lena until she succumbs to sleep beckoning her.

They have a fight. It’s small. It’s nothing. It’s been a while, too. Lena stopped nagging so much. She quit yelling at Kara to pick up her clothes, informing her that _her_ house and her _floor_ isn’t a laundry basket. She used to do that after two seconds of the clothes being discarded on said floors. Literally. 

Now? Lena’s more relaxed. She slaps Kara’s ass when she bends over to pick up her mess and she’s walking by. She doesn’t utter a word about the dirty clothes littering _her_ floor.

But not today. She doesn’t blame Lena, Kara practically flooded their house. It’s not her fault, she never installed a pool before. It’s clearly the wrong thing to say to her wife. 

She goes feral. 

Kara runs and ducks from the pillow flying at her head. 

It’s fine. They laugh about it soon after. 

Lena glares at her until she calls James to ask for help. She has to step on her ego, it hurts but her wife is far scarier than the sickening thought of admitting defeat when it comes to handy work, something Kara’s usually exceptionally good at. 

This job will take another set of hands, though. She asks Lena to help too. She accepts, after a few minutes of making Kara repeat that Lena was right all along, that she’s always right. Kara adds the simple fact that she’s the best wife in the world.

She never dated anyone before Lena. Never cared much, never wanted too even after being instantly pushed from both Alex and Eliza. Needless to say, they were beyond themselves when Kara randomly admitted over dinner, mindlessly threw the information out so casually that she had a date with the new girl at school. 

She never thought that eleven years later they would be here. Building a pool together in _their_ yard, behind _their_ house, while thinking about raising children together.

Well, Kara did. She isn’t sure if Lena wants any. It’s not something they ever talked about. She hopes to gain insight from Sam one afternoon. Alex, Ruby, and Lena are taking advantage of the nice weather and the newly installed pool. Kara and Sam are inside preparing lemonade and snacks.

“Sam?” Kara doesn’t look up from the vegetables she’s chopping.

“If you’re going to tell me something that will require me to lie to my best friend, I’m going to stop you right there.”

“What? No. I just had a question. About Lena,” she adds, eating a piece of carrot she just cut. She doesn’t see Sam’s narrowed gaze.

“You’ve known her longer than I have.”

Sam grew up in Metropolis. She moved here when Ruby was still just a baby. Something about the father stalking her, asking to see the kid. It’s always innocent at first, until they break-in, wait for you, sitting in the dark in the one place you think you’re safe in. A sad story. A scary one.

Kara rolls her eyes at her answer and asks her question anyway. “Do you think she wants kids? I mean, did she ever bring it up to you?”

“Oh.” Sam turns, opens the fridge, and rummages through it like it’s her own. It might as well be.

“I’m gonna need more than that.” Kara looks up, setting her knife on the cutting board. She leans forward, expectantly. Her eyes follow Sam’s movements. 

She’s seen how Lena is with Ruby. Gentle, caring. The girl loves her. She’ll be a great mother. Kara’s not so sure she would be. She didn’t have the best upbringing. Then again, Lilian is the coldest person she’s ever met and Lena’s the complete opposite. 

“With anyone else? I would have said no. With you? Yeah, probably.”

Okay. Kara can work with ‘probably’. That’s definitely something she can work with. Still, she chickens out asking her at least twelve times. 

She drops a kiss on Sam’s forehead as if she had just completed a great quest. Pulled a sword from a rock. Found a powerful magical ring. Something like that. Sam pinches her once, then twice, then Lena peeks inside from her position behind the screen door.

She’s wet, bathing suit dripping, dark hair slicked back. She’s not going to step inside the house like that. She would kill Kara for even thinking about doing the same. 

“Are you two quite done dallying? We’re starving out here.”

She hears Ruby shouting, echoing Lena’s words: ‘starving!’

Kara snorts a laugh, eats another carrot. “Because vegetables are _so_ filling.”

“Maybe not to a barbarian like you.”

Kara beats her chest. She accepts that fact about herself. Both women laugh. She opens the door for Sam, Lena pushes herself up and kisses Kara. 

“Is she torturing you again?” Lena asks once her best friend is out of earshot.

She’s been cold towards her even after things got better, not to mention all the text messages she sent at seemingly random intervals. They all ranged from ‘I know where you live’ with a knife emoji to ‘if you ever hurt her again she’ll help me hide your body I can promise you that’. Charming stuff. Kara accepts the punishment. It’s fine. It’s a best friend’s duty after all.

Those stopped a while ago, though. She’s been a little less hostile, it’s almost been two years.

“Nah.” Kara kisses her again. And again. And again. Until Alex yells that Kara’s purposefully withholding the dip from them. 

It’s moments like these where Kara truly feels like she’s part of a family. She always had issues before, seeing herself as a Danvers. It took time. She was shitty to Alex for a long time, even shittier to Eliza, but Jeremiah showed her love and kindness she never knew, and little by little, she accepted it and gave some love back.

She’s sitting on the deck, feet in the pool, her arm around Lena. She’s laughing at something that Alex said, Kara couldn’t tell you what, though, she’s not paying much attention. Ruby’s trying to teach Noah how to swim. It’s going as well as can be expected.

The addition of another child wouldn't complete the family, they already are one, but Kara’s ready. She’s seen how much happiness Ruby has brought Sam, even if used to be a difficult situation. She’s seen how it’s brightened her sister’s world. She always wanted kids, it’s the reason she and Maggie broke up. She and Sam are a match made in heaven, it’s a wonder it took them this long to realize it.

When she looks down at Lena, eyes are hidden under large sunglasses, her smile brighter than the sun itself, Kara’s certain of a lot of things. How in love she is. How she not only wants to call Lena her wife for the rest of their lives but the mother of her children too.

Child.

Woah there, one at a time.

“Everything okay, honey?”

Lena can surely see the crease in her eyebrow caused by her self-induced panic. It’s mild. Does she want more than one? 

“Huh?” She’s distracted, her wife notices.

“You look a thousand miles away.”

She pulls Lena closer, tighter against her. This would be the moment. The one where she admits her recent thoughts, but she can’t. They’re not alone and she doesn’t want to put Lena on the spot. 

“I’m right where I want to be, babe.”

That’s when Alex pushes her in the pool, claims she just wanted her sister to ‘cool off’. 

_Asshole._

Kara has Alex draped over her shoulders in a fireman carry after a mild struggle she wins without much effort. She threatens to throw her over the top rail. 

“I’ll tell mom!”

She overhears Sam say something along the lines of ‘can you believe they’re two grown women?’ 

Her wife laughs. It’s still her favorite sound.

Kara shrugs Alex off her shoulders, she hits the water cursing up a storm. She accepts the dunking that follows. 

Another work week starts, thankfully Kara’s on day shift. Winn’s talking her ear off about the wedding. She’s two minutes away from calling Alex, asking her to pop a flashbang in the back of their ambulance, when they get dispatched on a code 6. A fire. But it’s way out of their usual zone.

They have the operator repeat it. It’s still the same location.

They spot the grey smoke towering over the large skyscrapers before they even see the collapsed building. Every emergency response team has been called; Firefighters, Medics, Doctors, Police. 

Checkpoints tents are raised, gurneys are filled with patients needing urgent medical attention. It’s chaos. Kara thrives. Her body is on high alert, but her mind is focused and sharp.

“We’ll be earning our paychecks today, folks. Everyone ready?”

They respond one by one. No answer inspires trust or confidence. There’s no time for a speech, Alex somehow finds her in the midst of the chaos. 

“I need your help.”

The firefighters are otherwise occupied trying to tame the flames before they reach the building next to it, which is currently being evacuated. There’s not nearly enough of them. Kara nods, follows Alex. When they get there, Maggie is crouched next to a girl, holding her hand, whispering words of encouragement. She can’t be much older than nine.

“I tried, Kara, we tried—” Alex sounds panicked. She’s never seen her sister in this state. “It won’t budge.”

James would be handy right now, but who knows where the hell his team is. This rests on her now. They can’t use the lever method, it’ll crush the girl’s ribs before lifting the debris that collapsed and trapped her there. She’ll have to lift it. The only piece she can get a good grip on is scalding hot from the fire, a metal pipe. When her hand wraps around it, she doesn’t think of the skin that’s burning, she’s focused on the life she’s saving.

She lifts it up enough for Maggie and Alex to pull the girl out. Kara urges them to not move her until Winn wheels a gurney over. Her shoulder’s definitely going hurt for a while, there’s sharp pain there, most likely a micro-tear in the muscle. Her hand doesn’t hurt, not right now. It’s not a good sign. It’s most likely a third-degree burn. She doesn’t care. 

She doesn’t care that the recovery will suck, that a piece of her skin is most likely stuck on that metal pipe and not on her hand where it should be. The girl’s alive and that’s all that matters. 

“Your hand,” Alex says, voice tinged with concern.

She doesn’t look at it. She knows how bad it is just from the slight twitch of her fingers. 

Kara would protest, says they need all the help they can get, there are too many wounded patients left unattended. But she nods, understanding she won’t be much help soon. She decides to ride to the hospital with the girl. She wants to see this through. She can’t bear the thought of hearing they lost her on the way there. 

Not on her watch.

It should deter her from wanting kids, probably. She doesn’t even know this girl and the five-minute ride to NC General is absolutely agonizing. It doesn't. It reinforces the ‘maternal instinct’ everyone talks about. The need to protect. To care for. To love.

She stays behind the glass when they x-ray her. The girl’s eyes remain locked with hers the entire time. Doctor’s keep trying to take Kara away, imploring that her hand needs looking after. They give her a pain killer, injecting it in her arm via a needle. She’s not leaving the girl until she knows she’s alright.

She has two broken ribs. It would have been worse. Way worse. Inhaling smoke can cause severe problems and lead to death. But she’s fine. She’s lucky.

Kara finally sits down, a doctor takes care of her badly burned hand. The attending is young, beautiful, she flirts with Kara but she figures it’s a distraction tactic. If it isn’t, she doesn’t care. All she thinks about is Lena, how she’s most likely causing mass carnage trying to get here.

A smile breaks out on her face at the thought. The Doctor thinks that the smile is for her. 

_Oops._

“You did a really brave thing today. Not many people would have done what you did out there.”

“My wife always likes to remind me that I’m an idiot that jumps into danger headfirst. She’s right.” She lifts her shoulders in a shrug.

She must have known, the Doctor herself removed her wedding ring—it was the most painful process. Kara can’t help but think that figuratively, it almost happened. She almost ruined her marriage. So, then why does the redhead look shocked when Kara confirms that she’s married? Maybe it’s more along the lines of disappointment and not surprise.

The curtain is moved backward. There’s another doctor there, then she sees her. Lena’s shoulders sag in relief the moment her eyes find Kara's deep, blue ones. She’s swearing like a sailor when she wraps her arms around her neck. Kara squeezes her as hard as she can with both of her arms, the half-done bandage dangling from her injured hand.

“I’m okay.” She repeats over and over against Lena’s temple. She smells like wildflowers, like home. She only notices Sam when she joins the hug, calls her an idiot, and informs Kara that her wife nearly murdered a doctor. 

She’s not surprised.

When she pulls back, Kara’s head reels, heady from the drugs. She can’t contain the stupid grin she knows is on her face. She decides to sit back down when the floor starts moving in irregular patterns. 

The doctor stops flirting, thankfully. Lena’s presence is enough to deter her. She doesn’t leave Kara’s side for a second, rubs her shoulder and her neck. She enjoys the attention. Even Sam looks fiercely concerned with her arms crossed over her chest and the frown on her face.

“I’ve never had so many women dotting on me,” Kara admits with a chuckle.

“I imagine your wife is not the kind to let that happen often.” The redheaded Doctor that Kara hasn’t bothered to look at her name tag to learn her name says. 

“Often? Try never.”

Are they staring each other down? Is that what’s happening? Lena’s hot. She’s hot when she’s not wearing make-up. She’s hot with or without her reading glasses. She’s hot when she just woke up. She’s hot when she dresses up for work. She’s hot when she’s being protective and a little jealous.

She’s always hot, Kara concludes. 

Anyway, she knows better than to interrupt the pissing contest. Even while she’s flying high from the drugs they gave her. The familiar feeling of being high is not one she welcomes with open arms. She hates it. It reminds her of what she used to be. It reminds her of a time before Lena, before she saved her. And she did, save her.

She wants to be sober. She wants to feel like herself, so for the first two days she doesn't sleep, pain radiates through her entire arm and it’s excruciating. She snaps at Lena, one morning, Over nothing. It’s stupid really.

“I really don’t have the patience to deal with you being moody all day because you’re too pigheaded to take the damn pain meds they gave you.”

She sounds more hurt than angry. And she’s right. It’s not her fault. It’s no one’s fault. She can’t lose Lena. Not again.

“What if you keep them with you?“

They agree on that method, and it works like a charm. Kara’s not tempted to pop a few more than she needs. They’re strong though, and she spends most of her days blitzed out of her mind. Lena’s at work and it’s boring, so she games. A lot.

Eliza comes to visit, stays for a few days, and helps around the house. Lena absolutely hates it. She’s not sure when their rivalry started, or why it even exists in the first place, but it’s there, it’s alive, and it’s driving her fucking mad. 

“You need new curtains. This living room is so...dark.”

“That’s the point,” Lena replies with a soft sigh.

Kara can hear the annoyance in her tone as clear as day.

They couldn’t possibly watch TV with the sun beating down on it. The front of the house has large windows that stretch from the floor to the ceiling and most of the day the sunlight shines straight into their living room.

“What do you think, sweetie?” Her mother asks.

Kara stops mid-bite, sandwich held in one hand. Her eyes grow wider. She can’t believe her mother’s dragging her into this fight. Lena’s tense, she can see it. Her jaw twitches.

_Fuck._

“Uh, I like it the way it is?” She’s uncertain and it comes out as a question.

Lena’s scowl deepens. 

“Would it kill you to agree with your mother?”

Kara’s fairly certain what’s going to kill her is Lena if she doesn’t take her side.

“No one gives a shit about fucking curtains.”

Eliza stares at Kara with a face that says ‘do you see the way she talks to your mother?’

_Double fuck._

“Look, mom, you’re not here to work. We have a pool. A nice deck. Lena just installed a hammock outside. Treat this like a vacation home.”

She thinks she defused the situation. She’s proud. It lasts for a few seconds.

“I’m overstepping, aren’t I? I’ll just head back home and leave you two alone.”

Lena intervenes before Kara can think of something to say. Thank God. She didn’t know what to say.

“Eliza, don’t be silly. You’re always welcome here.”

“I’m a bit of a mess when I’m worried about my daughters.”

“We—I really appreciate the help.”

Alex once told her that Eliza always felt threatened by Lena because she takes care of Kara like her adoptive mother used to. She feels like she’s losing her place as her caretaker. That’s not true, Kara loves being fussed over by both women equally. 

And now they’re hugging. The whiplash alone is making Kara’s head spin more than the morphine she’s taking. She only realizes she’s laughing when Lena asks her what’s so funny. Both of them are looking at her now with questioning eyes.

“Nothing.” She supposes it isn’t funny. It’s fucking hilarious, actually. Maybe it’s just the morphine making it seem that way, though. 

At least she won’t have to hear her mother and her wife argue about curtains anymore.

“What do you think about rearranging this kitchen?”

 _Oh hell no._ Anything _but_ the kitchen. Lena’s kitchen.

“Kidding. I’m kidding.” Eliza laughs, it’s strained. 

Kara’s scared to look at the expression on Lena’s face.

Then she hears her wife laugh too.

Kara blows out a breath at the sound, on the verge of a heart attack. 

Eliza stays for two more weeks. Sam and Alex come over on the last day. She and Lena have been privately discussing, toying with the idea of having children ever since Lena brought it up a couple of nights ago. 

Of course, Lena’s the one to bring it up. She’s the one who asked Kara on a date first. She’s the one who kissed her first. She’s the one who asked to change their Facebook status to ‘in a relationship’. It’s a miracle she wasn’t the one to propose. 

She’s the one who tells them now, too.

“Kara and I are thinking of adopting.”

Ruby’s the happiest of all of them, exclaiming that she’ll have a little cousin. It’s not exactly correct but no one says anything. They’re all family, blood relations be damned. 

“I can get you in touch with Kara’s old social worker. She was a joy to work with.” Tears fill Eliza’s eyes, she holds them back.

The way Lena beams at her is the only confirmation Kara needs that they’re ready for this. 

She’s walking in her yard with Alex later that evening. Sam and Lena are doing whatever Sam and Lena do when they're left to their own devices. Plot her murder perhaps.

“So, a kid uh?”

“Yup.”

“It’s not always easy.”

She’s heard stories from both Sam and her sister, she knows that.

“I know. We were jackasses to mom and dad.” 

They both laugh at the memory. Correction, memories, as they are plentiful.

“You still are.” Alex teases, bumping her shoulder into Kara’s.

“You, Eliza, Jeremiah. You gave me a second chance at happiness. I want to give someone that chance too.”

“You’re crying,” Alex says. 

They stop walking. They both turn to face each other.

“So are you.” 

“Fuck off.” 

They hug, throw their arms around each other, holding on tightly. 

“You’ll be an amazing mom.”

It’s not something Kara can say she’s confident in admitting. She definitely thinks she can learn to be, though. With Lena by her side, there’s not much they can’t do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, I promised y'all a happy ending. Thee last two chapters will be an epilogue, Lena, and Kara's POVs.


End file.
